The View from Over the Hill

Pick Your Color -- Gray or Black?

2008-10-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

From gray to blackest black, all the news stories this weekend really offered very few bright threads, but we have to take them where we find them. It is increasingly obvious that the whole country – news media included have one hope and that is that this election is over soon and that the candidate who offers the most hope for the future wins by an unquestionable margin.

One of the brightest threads of the weekend was Colin Powell’s endorsement of Obama on “Meet The Press”. One of the darker tales was the story of A.I.G., the insurance giant bailed out by taxpayers for $123 billion. Just when we thought they had finally been shamed into stopping their post-bailout spa treatments, luxury sports suites, Vegas and California post resort retreats, it was discovered much to our amazement, that some A.I.G. execs were cavorting at a lavish shooting party at a British country manor. Check out Maureen Dowd’s Op-Ed piece to read about the undercover reporter who followed the “feckless financiers on their $86,000 partridge hunt as they tromped through the countryside in tweed knickers, and then later as they slurped fine wine and feasted on pigeon breast and halibut.” Dowd says that these days she’s feeling pretty much like what Charles Dickens described as the “vengeful and bloodthirsty Madame Defarge sharpening her knitting needles at the guillotine”. I can relate to that.

Then, how about Icesave.co.uk where British citizens, municipalities and universities – including Cambridge had their savings parked? When Tom Friedman checked out the Icesave Web site he discovered the headline: “Simple, transparent and consistently high-rate online savings accounts from Icesave”, but underneath in blue letters was the following note appended: “We are not currently processing any deposit or any withdrawal requests through our Icesave Internet accounts. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause our customers.” That’s more than an inconvenience – we’re talking total panic. See Tom Friedman’s column for more details.

But then there is an upside to all of this, a bright thread – can you believe that? A recession could actually save your life! According to Christopher Ruhm, an economist at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, the death rates go down during economic slowdowns. Now, granted, the suicides rise but total mortality rates drop, as do deaths from heart attacks, car accidents, pneumonia and most other causes.

Some experts are skeptical. But in downturns we drive less and so car accidents decline, while less business activity means fewer job accidents and less pollution. In addition to the fact that in recessions people have more leisure time and seem to smoke less, exercise more and eat more healthily. For more good news regarding recessions see Nicholas Kristoff’s Sunday column.

However, as far as I’m concerned I have had more than enough of politics, politicians, debates, recession, and fear-mongering. There has still, it seems to me, been more bad news than good for much of the time. Let’s hope the next fifteen days hurry by and that MAYBE we can finally see the light at the end of what has seemed to be an endless eight year tunnel.

A Hummingbird Morning!

2008-10-18T21:30:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine in Portland took this

photo of a hummingbird dining off their

deck ! I love it!

Have a lovely Sunday!

Puget Sound

2008-10-18T14:02:00.000-07:00

It is gorgeous here today and I took the camera and went

to a park very near our house that overlooks the Sound.

There were lots of people in lots of sail boats making the

most of the weather. As usual there were lots of puffy,

white clouds, blue sky, blue water and the beginning colors

of autumn. Not like on the east coast, but beautiful none the

less. So, take a sail with me! and enjoy!

Happy Saturday!

2008-10-18T12:00:00.000-07:00

I know it's not Sky Watch Day, but I was out playing with

the camera and had such fun that I thought I'd share some

from Seattle on a gorgeous day! Enjoy the weekend! Can

you tell I'm looking for things other than Nov. 4 to think

about?

Growing Old

2008-10-17T22:30:00.000-07:00

When I first began to blog, one of the first things I posted was a poem that I had written for a poetry class that I took several years ago. Today I ran across that poem and it seemed as real, as meaningful, as revelant to me today as it did to me then. So I thought I would share it again with those of you who are more recent readers.

Perplexed

Some days I can find the beauty in growing old,
Time to read, write, explore cyberspace.
Time to knit, try new recipes or fix old favorites.
Sleeping in, staying up late -- no schedules.

Time to read, write, and explore cyberspace,
Which in turn leads me to discover things now out of reach.
Sleeping in, staying up late -- yeah, no schedules.
It's suddenly far too easy to discover just what's wrong with that.

Which in turn leads me to discover things that I miss,
The excitement of meeting a deadline on a project, a night on the town.
It's suddenly not so easy to find what's wrong with that.
And looking forward to a night of dancing the tango, oh, the best!

The excitement of meeting a deadline on a project, a night on the town.
I miss that kind of "busy", the feeling that my life had a real purpose,
And looking forward to a night of dancing the tango -- still the best.
I am learning new things, doing new things, but it's not the same.

I miss that kind of "busy", the feeling that my life had a real purpose,
Not just time to knit or try new recipes or fix old favorites,
And I am learning new things, doing new things, but it's not the same.
Still, some days I can find the beauty in growing old.

Ready for a Peaceful and Beautiful Evening?

2008-10-17T19:00:00.000-07:00

No politics tonight, just a wish for you all to enjoy a lovely break, some beautiful music, some heart and belly warming food, a comfy chair, something fun to watch or do or share. We can take on the world again tomorrow.

Where Do We Go From Here? Does Anyone Have a Map?

2008-10-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

Up and down, up and down, that’s been the only news out of this manic-depressive stock market for what seems like weeks now. So, how and when will this level out? It seems pretty clear to everyone – well, everyone who has a functioning brain and is willing to look at the situation realistically – that rescuing the banks is just a first step. The next step is aid for the desperately needy nonfinancial economy.

According to Paul Krugman, we need to put some prejudices aside, forget about being politically fashionable and ranting against government spending and demanding fiscal responsibility. Like it or not, for now increased government spending is exactly what our country needs and we should put our concerns about the budget deficit on hold.

Retail sales have fallen off the cliff and so has industrial production. Unemployment claims are at steep-recession levels, manufacturing is falling at the fastest pace in almost 20 years. All these things point to a nasty and long economic slump. And just how nasty? The unemployment rate is already above 6 percent and it looks pretty certain that it will go above 7 percent, possibly 8 percent and this would make it the worst recession in a quarter-century. It looks as though it could be some time before we see any improvement.

The policy response to the last recession, which followed the bursting of the late-1990s technology bubble, on the surface looks like a success story in spite of there being a lot of fears that the US would experience a Japanese-style “lost decade”, but that didn’t happen – the Federal Reserve was able to engineer a recovery from that recession by cutting interest rates. But it was a slow recovery and came about only because the technology bubble was replaced by Alan Greenspan with the housing bubble.

And now that bubble has burst and we have another huge mess on our hands and right now it seems the initial results of the efforts to rescue the banking system and unfreeze the credit markets have had disappointing results. If there’s another bubble waiting to happen, it’s not obvious and it looks as though Fed will find it even harder to get traction this time.

So, what’s the answer? Krugman feels there’s a lot the federal government can do for the economy – well, McCain and a lot of Republicans won’t like the answer, but it sounds good to me. The federal government can provide extended benefits to the unemployed, which will help distressed families cope and put money in the hands likely to spend it. It can provide emergency aid to state and local governments, so that they aren’t forced into steep spending cuts that both degrade public services and destroy jobs. It can buy up mortgages and restructure the terms to help families stay in their homes.

And once again, and how many times have we heard this from many people lately, engage in some serious infrastructure spending. And why do we keep hearing this? The usual argument against public works as economic stimulus is that they take too long; by the time you get around to repairing that bridge and upgrading that rail line, the slump is over and the stimulus isn’t needed. Think again, the chances that this slump will be over anytime soon is all but nonexistent, so let’s get with it and get these types of projects rolling.

Right now we need government spending and that is most definitely not the road that John McCain will take. Barack Obama doesn’t have the same knee-jerk opposition to spending but he will have to deal with those who would tell him that he has to be responsible, that the big deficits the government will run next year if it does the right things are unacceptable.

Krugman’s answer for Obama is to ignore them – the responsible thing, right now, is to give the economy the help it needs and stop, at least for now, worrying about the deficit. Now that’s a map that makes sense to me – after all, Krugman is the guy who won the Nobel prize for economics, not those “inside-the-beltway” types.

Sky Watch

2008-10-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

It doesn't get any better than this. And I'm at my own home.

On my own deck! How cool is that?

A Situation To Be Aware Of

2008-10-15T06:30:00.000-07:00

This is an article written about the ex-wife of our next door neighbor.
It’s an unfortunate, sad and unhappy situation that I’m sure none of
us would want to find ourselves in. It’s interesting the difference between how the Canadians dealt with their citizen in the same situation compared to how our government has dealt with ours. I felt like people all over this country should be aware of incidents such as these.

Margie Boule writes for The Oregonian.
Rebecca Roth's incarceration in Mexico
An ordinary Oregonian in paradise falls into the deep hole they call the Mexican justice system
Sunday, October 12, 2008
The Oregonian

You're an American citizen, one of many Americans living in Mexico. You moved from Lake Oswego to Puerto Vallarta with your teenage sons in 1999 because your bad asthma goes away in Mexico.
Then one day in 2006, Mexican authorities arrive and arrest you. They put you in the back of a pickup and drive you overnight to a maximum-security prison, where you're dumped in a crowded room with murderers and the mentally ill. There's no translator; no one tells you why you've been taken.

You assume the U.S. government, the most powerful government in the world, will come to your aid. Help ensure your rights are protected under international treaties and Mexican law.

You're wrong.

Ask Rebecca Roth. The former Oregonian has been sitting in a Guadalajara prison for 21/2 years for a crime nobody can prove she committed and that the real criminal has sworn she had nothing to do with. Still, she was convicted after a ludicrous hearing and sentenced to nine years; the prosecutor is appealing, asking she be kept in prison for 23 years, the maximum sentence.
Her crime? For three months in 2001, Rebecca worked for a wealthy Canadian in Puerto Vallarta, making his travel arrangements and standing in line to pay utility bills for the properties he owned. (In Mexico you can't pay by check; someone must pay in cash in person.)
It turned out the Canadian man, Alyn Waage, was one of the largest Internet scam artists in history. He, associates and family members stole more than $60 million from investors all over the world. The U.S. convicted him in 2005, and he is in prison in North Carolina.

A year after Waage's U.S. conviction, Rebecca and Alyn Waage's cook, a Canadian woman, were arrested by the Mexican police, charged with organized crime and money laundering.

Each had received money when Alyn was first arrested, in Mexico, to continue their work for him. Rebecca consulted with Alyn's attorney -- who had also been attorney for Mexican president Vicente Fox -- and she remembers being told it was not illegal to work for someone in prison. Funds were transferred to her bank account, and she paid his utility bills. She has receipts and bank records to prove she received no more than utility costs and her salary.
She assumed those receipts, which prove her innocence, would lead to a not-guilty verdict in April, when her case finally came before a judge.

She didn't stand a chance.

Canada had certainly lived up to its national anthem, standing on guard for its own citizen. The Canadian cook was visited in prison by Canada's prime minister; politicians and diplomats appealed to Mexico; the Canadian press splashed her case coast to coast.

Rebecca's sister, Barbara Roth, received no help from the U.S. State Department, the consulate in Guadalajara or elected representatives from Oregon. No one made appeals to Mexico. No politicians visited Rebecca in prison.

There's no question her international rights were being ignored; her case should have been thrown out simply because of the violations. She was placed in prison with convicted criminals. Mexican guarantees of due process were violated. Interpreters were not provided. She was not told she was a suspect when she was interrogated. She was denied legal counsel. She was not given the time or the right to prepare an adequate defense.

In the end, Rebecca had to make her own charts and write her own defense, sitting in prison. Months after she was convicted, she was told the judge had dated his written verdict before the hearing was even held.

Since I last wrote about Rebecca several months ago, the Canadian cook has been returned to Canada and released. She's writing a book about her experience.

Rebecca still sits in the Mexican prison, waiting for her appeal to be heard.

She may not have the power of her government, or the sympathy of her entire country, but she's not alone.

Her ex-husband, David Dickinson, has now joined her fight.

"Quite honestly, when this started, I figured it would end with a false-arrest-type thing," David says from his home in Seattle.

He and the rest of the family were told not to make a fuss because it might anger Mexican authorities.

David is utterly certain Rebecca committed no crime. In the years they were married and in the years of friendship since their divorce, he's admired her strong ethics. "It would be completely out of character for her to go to Mexico and become a criminal," he says.

Rebecca owned a boutique and ceramics business in Puerto Vallarta. She took Alyn Waage's part-time job to tide her over in the tourist off-season, David says.

David was outraged when Rebecca was convicted. "I started making phone calls to senators, sending e-mails," contacting the national press. "It had no effect. I was absolutely amazed."

After I wrote about Rebecca's situation in The Oregonian, I received several e-mails from U.S. citizens who've worked abroad. They are not willing to have their names published but said the U.S. is known not to protect its citizens in situations like this. "If anyone had a problem, we headed straight for the Canadian consulate," one wrote.

Recently, David's hopes were raised when NBC appeared to be interested in doing an hourlong program about Alyn Waage's crimes and the injustice Rebecca has faced. Alyn has made sworn statements to U.S. judges insisting Rebecca knew nothing about his financial business.

But the U.S. Bureau of Prisons refused the network's request to interview Alyn. The network told David there will be no story without the interview.

It seems as if every time Rebecca is given a faint hope of assistance, her hope is broken. David hired a Mexican attorney who met with the Mexican appeals court judge, to explain why her conviction should be overturned. Rebecca's sister, Barbara, also met with the judge, to make a personal appeal.

"We were told it was a good judge, an impartial judge," David says. The Mexican attorney and Barbara told David the meetings had gone well.

Then, just a few days ago, Rebecca's case was transferred to another state, another appeals judge.

"This is shocking news and it has us all spinning," David says. "It's like starting all over again."

Still, they won't give up.

Rebecca could accept the guilty verdict, be transferred to the U.S. and finish her sentence in U.S. prisons. But the crimes Mexico convicted her of carry much higher sentences in the U.S. She could be released, or she could be imprisoned far longer than Alyn Waage, the man who stole $60 million.

Rebecca did not participate in or benefit from the scam, say all involved. She has little money. She does not want to live the rest of her life as a convicted felon. Before this, she'd never even been arrested.

So she persists in her appeal in Mexico, hoping others will join her fight. To that end, David Dickinson has started an informative blog (rebeccarothprisonerinparadise.blogspot.com).
Among other fascinating nuggets, he quotes a letter he received from Waage that claimed Rebecca is in prison because she's being held hostage by a Mexican prosecutor who was promised a half-million-dollar bribe by Waage; Waage skipped bail and never paid up.

There's also a quote from a Canadian government official, saying Rebecca may have been arrested so former President Fox could brag he'd imprisoned a "leader" in the Waage scandal.
Rebecca's family believes if she'd had money to pay a bribe early on, she'd never have been imprisoned. But she had no money. She was just an ordinary Oregonian in paradise, until she fell into the deep hole they call the Mexican justice system.

"She is very despondent," David Dickinson says, "feeling very ignored and unrepresented by her country. She was in tears when we last spoke."

But she's not suffering in silence anymore.

In an open letter Rebecca wrote recently, she says she's learned "how dangerous Mexico is for Americans desiring to retire here, how powerless foreigners are here. . . . It is not possible to get a fair trial.

"I don't belong in jail. I never did. My family is suffering, as well. I decided to write this because of a conversation with my youngest son. He told me, 'We have no hope. The system is corrupt and the U.S. doesn't care. There's no one to turn to.'

"I hope he's wrong."

Margie Boule: 503-221-8450; marboule@aol.com

Investment Tips For 2008

2008-10-14T16:22:00.000-07:00

With all the turmoil in the market today and the collapse of Lehman Bros. and Acquisition of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, this might be some good advice.

For all of you with any money left, be aware of the next expected mergers so that you can get in on the ground floor and make some BIG bucks. Watch for these consolidations in later this year:

1.) Hale Business Systems, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Fuller Brush, and W R. Grace Co. Will merge and become: Hale, Mary, Fuller, Grace.

2.) Polygram Records, Warner Bros., and Zesta Crackers join forces and become: Poly, Warner Cracker.

3.) 3M will merge with Goodyear and become: MMMGood.

4) Zippo Manufacturing, Audi Motors, Dofasco, and Dakota Mining will merge and become: ZipAudiDoDa .

5.) FedEx is expected to join its competitor, UPS, and become: FedUP.

6.) Fairchild Electronics and Honeywell Computers will become: Fairwell Honeychild.

7. ) Grey Poupon an Docker Pants are expected to become: PouponPants.

8.) Knotts Berry Farm and the Nat ional Organization of Women will become: Knott NOW!

And finally...

9.) Victoria 's Secret and Smith & Wesson will merge under the new name: TittyTittyBangBang

What Does It Take?

2008-10-14T07:27:00.000-07:00

I’ve been pretty gushy, sweet the past couple of days, but it’s the old, angry broad again today. So, beware!

There are a number of major problems this country needs to deal with – and soon. The whole Wall Street problem is the big issue these days, but it shouldn’t totally distract us from other serious issues. And one of those is in our educational system – particularly in the area of math. A new study finds that we are failing to develop math skills of boys and girls especially among those who could excel at the highest level, and it asserts that girls who do succeed in the field are almost always daughters of immigrants from countries where mathematics is more highly valued.

According to Bob Herbert, the idea that the U.S. won’t even properly develop the skills of young people who could perform at the highest intellectual levels is breathtakingly stupid! Oh, yes, it is indeed, stupid! The American culture does not value talent in math very highly. We’re too busy with other things, like text-messaging while jay-walking. The whole math thing is something for Asians or worse, nerds!

The other major problem is the truly sad state of the U.S. infrastructure. We, as a people, seem to be remarkably oblivious to this issue and according to Felix Rohatyn and Everett Ehrlich, most Americans are totally oblivious on this issue. We’re like a family that won’t even think about fixing a sagging, leaky roof until it collapses on our heads.

There’s the nightmare of Katrina, the collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis and none of these disasters seem to have been enough of a warning for us to get serious about infrastructure maintenance, repair and construction.

As Herbert says, a country that refuses to properly educate its young people or to maintain its physical plant is one that has clearly lost its way – and this on top of an unnecessary war, a clueless central government that is wasting taxpayer dollars by the trillions – say it after me, TRILLIONS, and you’ve got a society in danger of becoming completely unhinged – if we aren’t already.

According to an article in Monday’s Times which spotlighted some of the serious problems that have emerged in the No Child Left Behind law, among the law’s unintended consequences, Sam Dillon reported that it’s tendency to “punish” states that “have high academic standards and rigorous tests, which have contributed to an increasing pileup of failed schools. You’ve got to be kidding, right?

Why isn’t this an issue that is being discussed in the presidential campaign? Why not talk about this during the final debate? Why not interview a few teachers, principals and thoughtful citizens? Yeah, right.

Well, I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. Neil Postman warned us years ago about our amusing ourselves to death. We may be closer to that than anyone is, not only unaware of, but too wrapped up in their own personal little world to give a damn about.

It’s our country and it’s our children and grandchildren's future! It’s way past time for us to start giving a damn about it.

A Rose to Say Thank You!

2008-10-13T22:30:00.000-07:00

It has been one of those busy – at just what I’m not sure – but busy days and when I was finally able to sit down this evening, I looked back over the truly lovely comments that so many of you left yesterday and this morning on my blog. And, again, it has been and is such a real pleasure for me to have made contact with you, exchanged ideas and thoughts and concerns and I feel such a sense of gratitude – humbling really. So, I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you. I feel very blessed. In the difficult times that we are living in now, there are so many of us that may feel the negative effects of what is happening within our country and it is good to know that we do have the support of friends who share our concerns and understand what many of us feel. Those things alone can make many of the burdens, trials and tribulations – whatever, seem lighter and more bearable. So, I wish you all a peaceful evening and a very lovely tomorrow.

Chicken Instead of Politics

2008-10-13T16:30:00.000-07:00

I got up this morning ready to hammer politicians and particularly Republicans. I was ready to rant about the financial crisis. I was prepared to do more research into the martial law threat and the Northern Command. First, though, there was laundry to do – you can’t rant effectively in dirty clothes. But for some reason the drive to hammer and nail the bad guys was lacking – not enough to fuel it? Surely that wasn’t the case. Roger Cohen had an interesting article, “History and the Really Very Weird”, Paul Krugman, our new winner of the economics Nobel Prize, had a great column praising Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, and the Brown government for being willing to think clearly and act quickly regarding the world financial meltdown – I won’t even mention Paulson in that regard. But for whatever reason, I was lacking inspiration, or maybe I was just tired of being pissed off from sun rise to midnight. Whatever, I couldn’t stir up the anger, disgust and frustration, and since that has never been a problem for me, I reached for the thermometer; I must have collided with a virus from the kiddies in the Jump Start class. But, no, my temperature was quite normal. Hmmmm

It was gray and chilly and windy and suddenly I was already hungry for dinner and decided to make a trip to one of my great finds here in our neighborhood – Better Meat Store. We don’t eat a lot of meat, but when we do, I want the good stuff and I only want to buy what I need, not packages of four to six.

The store occupies a small building made of concrete blocks in the middle of a residential neighborhood where it has been in business since 1949. They’re not open on weekends – and, as I found out this morning, on national holidays either. Today is Columbus Day and they weren’t open.

When they are open and you step inside, it isn’t exactly impressive; small offices to the left, a counter down the middle of the relatively small room and a chopping block. Two doors side by side lead into two huge freezers. And that’s it.

They primarily sell meat – all natural, no preservatives – to restaurants, some grocery stores and to the public, those of us lucky enough to find them. It’s a family business and they take great pride in their products.

It’s been a great find and, if tomorrow I still can’t locate my zest for the political scene, I’ll take my shopping bag and load it up with meaty treats for Adam and I and cut to order, perfectly sized bones for Sam and Mojo – it’s their favorite store, too.

Mmmmmm! Hungry Yet?

2008-10-13T16:19:00.000-07:00

This is how we eat in the northwest -- not at my house
you understand, but it can be had. Can you tell I've been
obsessing about food today? It's got to be the politics!

Reflective Musings for a Sunday Afternoon

2008-10-12T15:45:00.000-07:00

I began blogging fairly recently – in early July. I had never even thought about doing it, had no real interest or even any curiosity, until a friend gave me an article about and written by older bloggers. It did prick my curiosity at that point primarily because I’ve always loved to write and have since I was a child. It had always been my escape from unhappy times, a way to sort out feelings, as well as just for the sheer fun of it. It offered a creative outlet that was important to me. I have published a few things, articles on parenting when my kids were growing up, some children’s stories, but I never really pursued publication for the eight books that I have written over the past forty or more years. Why? Because I was assured by nearly everyone from parents, to well meaning friends that it would just be a futile effort that would leave me frustrated, would eat into the time I needed to – depending on the stage of my life – concentrate on my studies, on my job, on my family. So, I put thoughts of writing for publication pretty much behind me and got on with my life. But I still wrote whenever I could find a few extra hours.

I never felt that I was missing anything as my life was busy, with college, with jobs, more college, teaching, raising a family, getting back into the work place and then suddenly I was retired – well, not suddenly I was sixty seven, but it was retirement I hadn’t planned on, but as those of you who’ve read my blog for a while know, the company was caught in, yes, another of those financial disasters and I found myself without a job. I was devastated, but decided I’d take a year off and then start looking for another job. You see, I didn’t really believe that age discrimination would have any effect on me! I was healthy, active, I had just learned to snorkel, I danced a wicked tango, I spoke Spanish, a little German and a little Japanese and figured I could learn more if I needed to. So, after a year in Mexico, I was ready to tackle the project of finding a new job. It took nearly three years for me to finally concede that there was indeed age discrimination and that regardless of how I felt and thought and/or believed, I was still getting ready to turn seventy!! Me?? Seventy?? Surely not!!

The next four years were difficult, painful, destructive in some ways because I let it all get to me and I felt much of the time that life – or at least an interesting one was pretty much over for me. Oh, I’d get it together much of the time – I took swim classes, I took short trips, went river rafting over class four rapids, jet boat cruises up the Columbia River to Astoria. I took poetry and life writing classes, got to California to spend holidays with my youngest daughter, and to Texas to visit my oldest son, made new friends – good stuff. But there was always that occasional dark night of the soul that led me to wonder what in the hell was I going to do with whatever time I had left.

Then my youngest son, who lives in Seattle, decided that I needed a keeper, built me a lovely space at his house and finally, after three years of talking it up, I was persuaded that perhaps it would be a good move – for both of us. It’s had its difficult moments – we had both lived on our own with only our dogs for company for a lot of years, we both accustomed to having our own space and sometimes the dark clouds would make it difficult to see the light.

And then I found blogging! What started out as a casual glance, was soon occupying most of my days and I had to make myself stop and take time to go my Tai Chi classes, do the volunteer work with the Jump Start program. Suddenly, my life was and is full, exciting, challenging, stimulating and, yes, fun! Even at seventy-five!

So, I’d like to thank my friend, Linda, for opening the door to blogging, and thanks to all the lovely, interesting, fun people that I have met through my blog site. It has become my voice, my place to vent the frustration with, not only growing old, but these days – politics; it’s a place to exchange ideas, to challenge me mentally and emotionally. It’s the best reason in the world to get up early and stay up late, for reading and learning, for sharing laughter and frustrations, for meeting new people, discovering new ideas and best of all providing me with a whole list of new friends.

So, we blog on Elders, just think how much worse off the world would be without our combined wisdom – whether anyone listens to it or not!

Joe Sixpacks, Soccer and Hockey Moms – Pay Attention

2008-10-12T00:00:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure what it is about our current economical crisis that some people don’t understand and I’m surely not wise enough or patient enough to try to convince them that their view of the country is badly screwed. I think people everywhere are feeling frustrated, angry, scared, confused and uncertain, but for those who still think that Republicans are the answer, you probably need to see a psychiatrist – and soon.

I could feel some of my own frustration in Bob Herbert’s column today and rather than give you a few quotes, I feel it is well worth the whole read.

October 11, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist

The Mask Slips

By BOB HERBERT

The lesson for Americans suffused with anxiety and dread over the crackup of the financial markets is that the way you vote matters, that there are real-world consequences when you go into a voting booth and cast that ballot.

For the nitwits who vote for the man or woman they’d most like to have over for dinner, or hang out at a barbecue with, I suggest you take a look at how well your 401(k) is doing, or how easy it will be to meet the mortgage this month, or whether the college fund you’ve been trying to build for your kids is as robust as you’d like it to be.

Voters in the George W. Bush era gave the Republican Party nearly complete control of the federal government. Now the financial markets are in turmoil, top government and corporate leaders are on the verge of panic and scholars are dusting off treatises that analyzed the causes of the Great Depression.

Mr. Bush was never viewed as a policy or intellectual heavyweight. But he seemed like a nicer guy to a lot of voters than Al Gore.

It’s not just the economy. While the United States has been fighting a useless and irresponsible war in Iraq, Afghanistan — the home base of the terrorists who struck us on 9/11 — has been allowed to fall into a state of chaos. Osama bin Laden is still at large. New Orleans is still on its knees. And so on.

Voting has consequences.

I don’t for a moment think that the Democratic Party has been free of egregious problems. But there are two things I find remarkable about the G.O.P., and especially its more conservative wing, which is now about all there is.

The first is how wrong conservative Republicans have been on so many profoundly important matters for so many years. The second is how the G.O.P. has nevertheless been able to persuade so many voters of modest means that its wrongheaded, favor-the-rich, country-be-damned approach was not only good for working Americans, but was the patriotic way to go.
Remember voodoo economics? That was the derisive term George H.W. Bush used for Ronald Reagan’s fantasy that he could simultaneously increase defense spending, cut taxes and balance the budget. After Reagan became president (with Mr. Bush as his vice president) the budget deficit — surprise, surprise — soared.

In a moment of unusual candor, Reagan’s own chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Martin Feldstein, gave three reasons for the growth of the deficit: the president’s tax cuts, the increased defense spending and the interest on the expanding national debt.

These were the self-proclaimed fiscal conservatives who were behaving so profligately. The budget was balanced and a surplus realized under Bill Clinton, but soon the “fiscal conservatives” were back in the driver’s seat. “Deficits don’t matter,” said Dick Cheney, and the wildest, most reckless of economic rides was on.

Americans, including the Joe Sixpacks, soccer moms and hockey moms, were repeatedly told that the benefits lavished on the highfliers would trickle down to them. Someday.
Just as they were wrong about trickle down, conservative Republican politicians and their closest buddies in the commentariat have been wrong on one important national issue after another, from Social Security (conservatives opposed it from the start and have been trying to undermine it ever since) to Medicare (Ronald Reagan saw it as the first wave of socialism) to the environment, energy policy and global warming.

When the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to the discoverers of the link between chlorofluorocarbons and ozone depletion, Tom DeLay, a Republican who would go on to wield enormous power as majority leader in the House, mocked the award as the “Nobel Appeasement Prize.”

Mr. Reagan, the ultimate political hero of so many Republicans, opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In response to the historic Brown v. Board of Education school-desegregation ruling, William F. Buckley, the ultimate intellectual hero of so many Republicans, asserted that whites, being superior, were well within their rights to discriminate against blacks.

“The White community is so entitled,” he wrote, “because, for the time being, it is the advanced race...” He would later repudiate that sentiment, but only after it was clear that his racist view was harmful to himself.

The G.O.P. has done a great job masking the terrible consequences of much that it has stood for over the decades. Now the mask has slipped. As we survey the wreckage of the American economy and the real-life suffering associated with the financial crackup of 2008, it would be well for voters to draw upon the lessons of history and think more seriously about the consequences of the ballots they may cast in the future.

Surprising Critics

2008-10-11T00:00:00.000-07:00

I’m not usually a reader of, or fan of Gail Collins and David Brooks, both staunch Republican Op-Ed Columnists for the New York Times, but even they have surprisingly strong criticism of Sarah Palin and the Republicans of today, in their columns for the past two days. They are worth reading. I know I was surprised by what they had to say, but I was particularly interested in Brooks’ column.

He began by talking about the fact that there have been substantial changes in the Republican Party over the years, changes that many Republicans are not particularly happy with. Apparently, according to Brooks, conservatives, driven by a need to engage elite opinion, tried to build an intellectual counterestablishment with think tanks and magazines. They disdained the ideas of the liberal professoriate, but they did not disdain the ideal of a cultivated mind.

But over the past few decades, the Republican Party has driven away people who live in cities, in highly educated regions and on the coasts. This expulsion has had, says Brooks, many causes, but the big one is this: Republican political tacticians decided to mobilize their coalition with a form of social class warfare. Democrats kept nominating coastal pointy-heads like Dukakis so Republicans attacked coastal pointy-heads.

He goes on to say that over the past 15 years, the same argument has been heard from thousands of politicians and hundreds of talk-radio jocks. Now the nation is divided between the “wholesome” Joe Sixpacks in the heartland and the oversophisticated, overeducated, oversecularized denizens of the coasts. Hmmm, well, I don't know about you, but I know who I would prefer.

What had been a disdain for liberal intellectuals slipped into a disdain for the educated class as a whole. The liberals had coastal condescension, so the conservatives developed their own anti-elitism, with mirror-image categories and mirror-image resentments, but with the same corrosive effect.

Brooks says that Republicans developed their own leadership style. If Democratic leaders prized deliberation and self-examination, then Republicans would govern from the gut.

According to Fred Barnes, who wrote in his book, “Rebel –in-Chief”, George Bush “reflects the political views and cultural tastes of the vast majority of Americans who don’t live along the East or West Coast. He’s not a sophisticate and doesn’t spend his discretionary time with sophisticates. As First Lady Laura once said, she and the president didn’t come to Washington to make new friends. And they haven’t.”

The Republicans have alienated whole professions. Lawyers now donate to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party at 4 to 1 rates. With doctors, it’s 2-to-1. With tech executives, it’s 5-to-1. With investment bankers, it’s 2-to-1. Brooks says, it took talent for Republicans to lose the banking community.

Conservatives are as rare in elite universities and the mainstream media as they were 30 years ago. The smartest young Americans are now educated in an overwhelmingly liberal environment.

This year could have changed things. The G.O.P. had three urbane presidential candidates. But the class-warfare clichés took control. Giuliani disdained cosmopolitans at the Republican Convention. Mitt Romney gave a speech attacking “eastern elites.” John McCain picked Sarah Palin.

Brooks says that while Palin is smart, politically skilled, courageous and likable – I have to question that description, but then I’m a Democrat – and her convention and debate performances were impressive -- his words, not mine. But no American politician plays the class-warfare card as constantly as Palin. Nobody so relentlessly divides the world between the “normal Joe Sixpack American” and the coastal elite. Now, on that we can agree!

So, politically, the G.O.P. is squeezed at both ends. The party is losing the working class by sins of omission – because it has not developed policies to address economic anxiety. It has lost the educated class by sins of commission – by telling members of that class to go away.

A pretty sad picture, at least for Republicans, but hopefully it means a brighter day for the Democrats and this country.

Body Politics: Sarah Palin's Body Language And Why It Should Worry You

2008-10-10T19:00:00.000-07:00

A friend sent this to me and it's worth reading. You can check out more at this website.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathlyn-and-gay-hendricks/body-politics-sarah-palin_b_132785.html

Since our last post, we've been asked many times to comment on Sarah Palin's mannerisms. Her Body-Talk is not as blatant as her running mate, probably because she has a background as a performer in beauty pageants and television. She has learned to conceal the smirks and clenches that play so openly across the countenance of John McCain.

In our work we call body language the Five Flags, because there are five major ways human beings react when they're not speaking the authentic truth. Twitches and jaw-clenches are examples of Flag #1, Body-Flags. To understand Sarah Palin, though, you need to understand Flags #2 and #3, Voice-Flags and Attitude-Flags. The English word 'personality' comes from two Latin words, per and sona, "through sound." The Romans knew that the personality comes through in the tone of voice and other vocal aspects.

From thirty-five years of clinical experience, we can tell you a lot about Sarah Palin's real personality and why it makes many people even more nervous that John McCain's.

Attitude-Flag #1: The Aggressive Confidence Of The Con-Person

Sarah Palin has mastered one fundamental requirement of a Republican president: she can smile and look you directly in the eye while telling an outrageous lie. At least when John McCain lies, his body screams his discomfort by putting on an eye-catching display of twitches, phony smiles and robot moves. McCain's body language is so strange that it's easily observable; he appears to be operated by a puppeteer who is a couple of triple-espressos over the line. That's a good thing, though. We'd much rather have a presidential candidate who reads like a comic book when he's lying than one who conceals those whoppers under a grin and a wink. Sarah Palin belts out her deceptions and distractions with a radiant confidence we usually only see in sociopaths and infomercial pitch-persons. The last public figure we saw who could grin and lie with that kind of sunny confidence was O. J. Simpson.

Voice-Flag #1: The Exaggerated Folksiness Of The Huckster

Our partisan colors may peek through subtly from time to time, but we do our best to be non-partisan lie-catchers. We cringed when Bill Clinton did his famous "I did not have sex..." line. We immediately looked at each other and said "uh-oh," because his body language let us know loud and clear that he did indeed have sex with "that woman." About ten minutes after Clinton's declaration, our phone started ringing from producers of talk shows wanting us to comment on Clinton's body language. They knew they'd seen something, but they couldn't figure out exactly what.

More recently, we cringed when we heard Sarah Palin start using more of those pseudo-folksy expressions such as "You betcha" and "doggone-it." She was droppin' so many g's on-stage at last week's debate that the janitorial staff may have had to work over-time pickin' 'em up, by gum. The last eight years have taught us all a sobering lesson: you don't have to be smart to be the President of the United States. However, we hope that America is smart enough to see Palin's exaggerated folksiness for what it is, a cheap trick to cozy up to us so they can sell us four more years of Bush Lite. We hope America will hear those "You betchas" and send Mc Cain/Palin a message right back: Just because you pretend to be dumb and folksy, you don't automatically get to live in the White House.

Voice-Flag #2: The Metallic Shriek Of The Fear-Monger

To emphasize certain points, Sarah Palin takes her voice up the tone scale to a metallic shriek. This tone will be familiar to many of us: it's the voice your mother employed as a last resort to get you out of bed when you were a teenager. It's designed to scare you, to rake fingernails across your inner chalkboard. She often uses this voice when she first takes the stage at a rally. It works quite well there, because it cuts like a knife and jolts any of the faithful who might be dozing to sit up in their seats. We hope Americans are not so sleepy as to vote in favor of hearing this tone of voice for four years.

Here's the bottom line: The McCain/Palin campaign strategy is based entirely on stirring up fear. It's a classic way to distract people from thinking about real issues and to cover up the lack of any real solutions. Their thinking goes like this:

•If we can get people scared that Obama might secretly be a Muslim or a terrorist, maybe we can get them not to think about the real issues.

•If we can get people scared that Rev. Wright might turn the inaugural benediction into an anti-American rant, maybe we can get them to believe America's economic problems are just something cooked up by the elite media as a way to play "Gotcha" on poor Sarah and John.

•If we can scare people into thinking Barack HUSSEIN Obama is going to put Louis Farrakhan in charge of the annual White House Easter egg hunt, maybe people won't notice that we have absolutely no solutions to the real problems they face.

Barack Obama has so far opted to run a positive campaign based on hope and thoughtful solutions. It's our fervent desire that he continue to do so, because it's about time we turned our national attention to positive possibilities. Over the past eight years we've had enough fear-mongering to last a lifetime.

TAKE ACTION!

2008-10-10T11:31:00.000-07:00

What an unbelievable response! In just 24 hours, more than 100,000 folks sent messages to ABC in support of airing our Repower America ad (see below for more information). But we still haven't heard from ABC.There are only a few hours left before the next airing of 20/20. Let's work to get another 50,000 public comments by then.Will you help? Just go to:
http://www.wecansolveit.org/ABCIt only takes a minute. Thanks.-----------------------------------

Tell ABC to air the Repower America ad this Friday on 20/20.Take Action!
Did you notice the ads after the presidential debate?ABC had Chevron. CBS had Exxon. CNN had the coal lobby. But you know what happened last week? ABC refused to run our Repower America ad -- the ad that takes on this same oil and coal lobby.I sent a letter asking ABC to reconsider their decision and put our ad on the air, but still we haven't heard back more than a week later. I think they need to hear from all of us. Can you help? Please send a message to ABC and tell them to air the Repower America ad this Friday on 20/20. Just click here:http://www.wecansolveit.org/ABCWe're working to get 100,000 public comments to ABC before 20/20's next airing.Our Repower America ad has a clear and simple message -- that massive spending by oil and coal companies on advertising is a key reason our nation hasn't switched to clean and renewable sources for our energy.Here's the script of the ad:
The solution to our climate crisis seems simple.Repower America with wind and solar.End our dependence on foreign oil. A stronger economy.So why are we still stuck with dirty and expensive energy?Because big oil spends hundreds of millions of dollars to block clean energy.Lobbyists, ads, even scandals.All to increase their profits, while America suffers.Breaking big oil's lock on our government ...Now that's change.We're the American people and we approve this message.
You can view the ad on the ABC petition page, here.As our country faces deep economic problems, we need to be able to have an honest debate about the root causes of our problems. As Al Gore has said, "We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the future of human civilization. And every bit of that has to change."As oil and coal backed groups outspend even major party committees in this political year, it's outrageous that ABC would deny our ad. Let ABC know what you think. Just click here.Thank you,Cathy ZoiCEO www.wecansolveit.org

Why Women Must Vote

2008-10-10T00:00:00.000-07:00

See the pictures that Dianne has to go with her story at http://www.hihidi.blogspot.com/ that graphically displays what women went through to earn the right for us to vote.

See this site for more information about our need to vote in this election.

http://www.fwhc.org/why-women-vote.htm

This is why we vote: Because we can!

The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and with their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of "obstructing sidewalk traffic." They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the "Night of Terror" on November 15, 1917 (a mere 87 years ago), when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food -- all of it colorless slop -- was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because--why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie "Iron Jawed Angels." It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder. All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was -- with herself. "One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie," she said. "What would those women think of the way I use -- or don't use -- my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn." The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her "all over again."

HBO will run the movie periodically before releasing it on video and DVD. I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum.We are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order. It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. The doctor admonished the men: "Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."Please pass this on to all the women you know. We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women.

-Connie Schultz, The Plain Dealer, 1801 Superior Ave.,Cleveland, OH 44114, Cschultz@plaind.com, August 2004

Sky Watch

2008-10-09T11:30:00.000-07:00

Skies and clouds over Oregon

What Defines Patriotism?

2008-10-09T00:00:00.001-07:00

Here I go, asking questions again, but everytime I listen to or read anything about Palin, my mind starts filling up with questions. I look for answers, I read, I research and while I find lots of other people's questions and concerns, I don't always find anwsers. During the VP debates last week did you really learn anything positive? I'm afraid I didn't. According to what Palin said in the debate with Joe Biden, if you’re in the middle class, in her neighborhood, it’s not patriotic to pay taxes. Say what??

Thomas Friedman of the NYT wrote a great column today about “Palin’s Kind of Patriotism” and he is surely as outraged as I am by such a statement. He writes that he wishes she had been asked: “Governor Palin, if paying taxes is not considered patriotic in your neighborhood, then who is going to pay for the body armor that will protect your son in Iraq? Who is going to pay for the bailout you endorsed? If it isn’t from tax revenues, there are only two ways to pay for those big projects – printing more money or borrowing more money. Do you think borrowing money from China is more patriotic than raising it in taxes from Americans?” That is not putting America first. That is selling America first.”

He goes on to say, that he grew up in a very middle-class family in a very middle-class suburb of Minneapolis, and his parents taught him that paying taxes, while certainly no fun, was how we paid for the police and the Army, our public universities and local schools, scientific research and Medicare for the elderly. No one said it better than Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.”

I also agree with Mr. Friedman when he reminds us that our country is in serious trouble right now and like him I wonder if the people so ardently supporting Palin have any idea of just what serious trouble our country is in now?

According to him, we are in the middle of an economic perfect storm and we have no idea how much worse it is going to get. People all over the world are hoarding cash, no bank feels they can fully trust anyone they’re doing business with anywhere in the world. And it’s just the beginning.

Only good governance can save us right now and, according to Friedman, he isn’t sure that this crisis will end without every government in every major economy guaranteeing the creditworthiness of every financial institution it regulates. That may be the only way to get lending going again. Organizing something that big and complex will take some really smart governance and seasoned leadership.

It’s not even a question of whether or not John McCain has the stuff to be president, he is endangering this country by putting a total novice like Palin in a position to possibly have to steer us through the most serious economic crisis of our lives and that is total recklessness and the very opposite of conservative. Well, what about advisors? She can find those can’t she? And if they disagree, what happens then?

I also agree with Friedman when he says his biggest fear about Palin is the fact she is promoting our further dependence on oil, which means further dependence on countries like Saudi Arabia and that surely isn’t patriotic! Patriotic is offering a plan to build our economy, not by tax cuts or punching more holes in the ground, but by empowering more Americans to work in productive and innovative jobs. Friedman hasn’t heard of her having that kind of a plan. And needless to say, neither have I.

Words of Wisdom from Maya Angelou

2008-10-08T18:00:00.000-07:00

I do like to pass on occasional words of wisdom when I hear them and these are some of the best.

I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.

'I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things:a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.'

I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life.

I've learned that making a 'living' is not the same thing as 'making a life.

'I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.'

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back.

I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.

I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.

I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.

I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Today's Two-Story Outhouse

2008-10-08T08:07:00.000-07:00

A friend sent me a cartoon today, one that I’m sure some of you have seen, with a picture of a two-story outhouse – the second floor is designated for Politicians and the first floor for Voters. Hey, sounds about right to me these days! But I want to believe that Obama – you know, “that one” -- is one of us first floor users who is hoping to tear the whole thing down and build a one level house with an indoor bathroom.

What is it about “equality” that McCain and his bunch find so hard to deal with? I do feel that if (hopefully) McCain does lose he will realize that he is as much responsible as anyone for failing to live up to his own – or what use to be his own, personal standard of honor. He was defeated twice by George Bush because of the same kind of no-conscience campaigning and yet here he is running the same kind of campaign with help from one of the people that put him down – twice, Lee Atwater. Atwater, creative monster who helped Bush One defeat Michael Dukakis and McCain himself, with rumors that he had fathered an out-of-wedlock, black baby. And now McCain himself is using almost the exact same rhetoric against Obama. That Obama is one of those liberals who will raise your taxes, take away your guns, won’t protect the country, is a Harvard “elitist” and has a funny sounding name and is on the side of “The Black Man”! Mmmm sounds familiar to me. Surely, at some point McCain has to view his own tactics these days with disgust.

But instead he’s going right along with the same outrageous hype and has released Palin to do the same, only more. And while I do think that at one time John McCain had at least some sense of decency and morals, I can’t say I think the same about Palin who looks to be able to out Cheney, Cheney. Both she and McCain are doing everything in their power to vilify Obama, to picture him as “dangerous”, “dishonorable” and “too risky for America”. I ask you, considering the shape our country finds itself in today, are you really willing to give Republicans another chance? Are you really willing to continue having to use the bottom floor of the outhouse?

Tuesday's Debate

2008-10-07T20:20:00.000-07:00

According to Ari Melber of The Nation, John McCain did not have the debate he needed on Tuesday night. The following is an article by him immediately following the debate tonight. I know The Nation is very liberal, guess that's why I like them, but I do agree with most of what he had to say

McCain's style was aggressive, disciplined and occasionally punchy. He heaped criticism on Barack Obama, blasting his record on taxes, health care and earmarks, and at one point derisively called the Democratic nominee "That One." McCain made over 14 references to the candidates' "records," pleading with voters to put aside Obama's words and inspect his history.
McCain's policy rhetoric was populist, reformist and sometimes contrarian. He floated the name of Obama backer Warren Buffet as a potential Treasury Secretary, and pledged that his administration would swiftly "buy up" all "the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes." (Obama's rapid response team immediately noted that the bailout bill already includes "authority" for the Treasury to buy residential and commercial mortgages.) After all the audience questions and Brokaw quips piled up, however, McCain still failed to upend the narrative. It's a major setback in a race that is trending towards Obama and running out of time.

While McCain attacked most of the night -- in spite of the intimate, town hall setting -- Obama stuck to a crisper, measured tone. He still returned fire when necessary, counter-punching a financial attack by noting that "McCain's campaign chairman's firm was a lobbyist on behalf of Fannie Mae." Obama swiftly pivoted, however, to addressing the economy from a regular voter's perspective. "But, look, you're not interested in hearing politicians pointing fingers. What you're interested in is trying to figure out, how is this going to impact you?" Then he touted his plans to "strengthen" home buyers and advance regulation instead of the free market fundamentalism that ruled over the past "eight years."

I think Obama's best moment came when he reprised McCain's attack from the last debate. "Sen. McCain, in the last debate and today, again, suggested that I don't understand. It's true. There are some things I don't understand," he said firmly. "I don't understand how we ended up invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, while Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are setting up base camps and safe havens to train terrorists to attack us. That was Sen. McCain's judgment and it was the wrong judgment. When Sen. McCain was cheerleading the president to go into Iraq, he suggested it was going to be quick and easy, we'd be greeted as liberators," he explained, concluding, "That was the wrong judgment, and it's been costly to us."

Before the debate had even ended, the Republican National Committee was already spinning a disappointing night for McCain. In the 10pm hour, an RNC spokesperson sent reporters a post by Politico's Ben Smith, "Not really a town hall," complaining about the format.

More Jobs, Now!

2008-10-07T11:05:00.000-07:00

Okay, so much for lovely memories, it's back to ugly reality and reality seems to be the one thing this country has been avoiding, but we can’t continue to pull the shades over our eyes for much longer. Banks and brokerage houses are failing all around us. Trillions of dollars in bailout money has been added to the nation’s debt burden, families too numerous to count are being driven from their homes. Maybe it’s time to get back to the basics – like good jobs, the primary component of a sustainable family life. But our economy is never going to be anywhere near what it needs to be until this country figures out how to provide work at a decent pay for at least most of the men and women who want to work.

The amount of debt for the typical middle-income family, earning about $45,000, grew by a third from 2001-2004, according to the Center for American Progress. The reason for all this added debt was the rising cost of housing, higher education, health care and transportation. At the same time, wages grew just slightly, if at all. It’s going to take more than work, obviously and don’t even ask about the debt burden of the federal government.

The fact is that there haven’t been enough good paying jobs to sustain what most working Americans view as an adequate standard of living and that is the fundamental flaw in the U.S. economic system. This latest financial meltdown has created widespread outrage over the excessive compensation of top executives, so where have we been??? The rich have been running the table for the better part of the last 30 to 40 years! The earnings of the average men in their 30s have remained almost flat for the past four decades, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Accordingly, disaster was avoided by the wives and mothers entering the workplace and by embracing huge amounts of debt for everything from home mortgages, cars, clothing and vacations to food, college tuition and medical expenses. And guess what? The middle-class and working families are up against the wall and the only way to continue financing a reasonable quality of life is through a paycheck. But nearly 160,000 jobs were lost in September alone. More than three-quarters of a million have vanished over the past nine months.

According to people who know a lot more than I do, the economy won’t be saved by bailing out Wall Street and waiting for that day that never comes, when the benefits trickle down to ordinary Americans. It won’t be saved until we get serious about putting vast numbers of Americans back to work in jobs that are reasonably secure and pay a sustaining wage.

We have a lot of rebuilding to do; we need to put more of us to work rebuilding our country’s collapsing infrastructure, revitalize the public school system, working to create more energy self-sufficiency and try, for a change, to do a re-take on an economy that still leans strongly in favor of the rich.

Now, let’s hear the politicians talk about that for a while and stop the name calling and slander, the “it’s all about” me and “he’s the bad guy” crap and start working together to redeem this country before it’s too late – for us – you know, the guys at the bottom of the pole!

Old Photographs and Memories

2008-10-07T00:00:00.000-07:00

I received a letter from a cousin of mine today and enclosed were a handful of old family photos that she had found going through some albums. There were several of my parents and aunts and uncles over the last several years of their lives, but the two on the bottom were the surprise. It was me at eleven years old, wearing a long dress, sitting on a stool in front of one of those big old radios -- remember those? It was taken on February 14, 1945 and on the back of the photo my mother had written that I was going to a valentine party that night at a little club I belonged to and that I was elected Queen of Hearts that night.

I wish I could say I remember the event vividly, but I actually have very few memories of my childhood. It wasn't a particularly happy time except for when the pilots, stationed at the air base near my hometown, and their wives lived with us during the war -- a time I wrote a post about not long ago. As it happened, the dress I'm wearing in the photo was the same one I wore when I was a member of the wedding of one of the pilots. That I remember vividly. Strange what memories stay tucked away in your mind, while others were lost somewhere along the way.

I hadn't seen any of my cousins in nearly forty years when we finally got together again a little over three years ago at my son's house in Dallas, Texas. There are only six of us left, one was unable to make it, but the other four came with wives and husbands from various parts of Texas. My son had just bought his house and I had told them that while it was a great house, he had no furniture to speak of. So, they all brought lawn chairs and coolers and photo albums. We spread out in his big empty den off the kitchen and proceeded to look back over the past forty years. It was marvelous fun!

When I married my children's father, whom as many of you know by now, is black, a couple of my aunts and uncles refused to have me in their house. Now it seemed the time had come to put all that stuff behind us and be the family we had once been. They were impressed with my son -- of course they would be! he's wonderful! We took pictures and laughed and looked old photo albums, ate pizza, toasted the day with a bottle of champagne and it was quite late before they left for their hotel.

We stay in very close touch these days -- of course, email makes that easy, but I'm so grateful we had that opportunity to reunite. Since then the husband of one of my cousins died the next year of pancreatic cancer. About the same time the cousin I use to spend every summer with at our grandmother's house was diagnosed with breast and liver cancer. She's holding on and is amazingly brave.

So, it's been a nostalgic evening, with good memories and sad ones, but the good ones, the lovely ones are the ones to hold on to and we'll all weather the sad ones. Times like these help to put things in perspective. Helps you to realize that the politics will come and go, the country will survive and it is up to each of us to make the very best of our lives, each hour and each day, to enjoy our chilren and families and to let them know just how much they are loved.

So, for tonight I shall push all the grim news of the day, the politics, the doubts, the fears for the future, into the space under the stairway, put on some music, look at the pictures again and remember and be grateful and toast my family with a glass of wine.

Beautiful Summer Memories

2008-10-06T21:00:00.000-07:00

It was a lovely summer, time spent with good friends and family, lovely trips, new adventures.

And I would like to share them with you from a seaplane flight, to Pike's Market, the Dahlia Festival, Orcas Island. Some with family, friends, pictures shared by friends of their adventures.

These are the memories, the pleasures that get us through the difficult times we are all experiencing now. I try to focus on the good -- I'm not always successful, but these help.

Sarah Palin unleashed by John McCain for attacks on Barack Obama - US elections

2008-10-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin was deployed by John McCain as his election "attack dog" at the weekend as the race for the White House entered its final month.

By Toby Harnden in Washington
UK Telegraph

Sarah Palin accused Barack Obama of 'palling around with terrorists who would target their own country' Photo: AFP / GETTY Mr. McCain's aides had kept Mrs Palin, 44, under wraps as much as possible, beginning to fear she might become a liability. But fresh from an assured performance in the vice-presidential debate, and with Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, surging ahead in the opinion polls, Mr McCain threw caution to the wind and ordered that Mrs Palin, 44, attack his White House rival repeatedly and ferociously.

Let off the leash on Saturday, Mrs Palin accused Mr Obama of "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country" in a reference to him once being a member of a Chicago community group with William Ayers. The former member of the Weather Underground was last active in the domestic terrorist group during the presidential candidate's childhood.

She added: "This is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America."
The Obama campaign responded that Mrs Palin's attack was "gutter politics" and other supporters suggested that the McCain campaign was merely trying to distract voters from the economy, on which Mr Obama is deemed to be more competent.

However, more worrying for Mr McCain is that her first pitbull-like assault on Mr Obama appeared yesterday to have backfired spectacularly as Democrats queued up to dish electoral dirt on Mr McCain.

They believe that John Kerry lost to George W. Bush in 2004 because he did not respond strongly enough to Republican attacks. But they do not intend to stand idly by this time.

Paul Begala, a leading Democratic strategist, said that Mr McCain had been on the board of a group for ultra-conservatives that was once condemned by the Anti-Defamation League as being a forum "for extremists, racists and anti-Semites".

"Now, that's not John McCain, I don't think he is that. But you know, the problem is that a lot of people know John McCain's record better than Governor Palin. And he does not want to play guilt by association or this thing could blow up in his face," said Mr Begala.

The Democratic Congressman Rahm Emanuel warned there was plenty of ammunition to launch against Mr McCain if the race soured further.

"If we are going to go down this road, you know, Barack Obama at eight years old somehow responsible for Bill Ayers. At 58, John McCain was associating with Charles Keating." Keating, a lawyer and banker, was jailed for his role in a savings and loan scandal in the 1980s.

Mrs Palin joked at the Republican convention that the difference between a hockey mom - a title she proudly proclaims - and a pitbull was just "lipstick".

Make-Believe Maverick

2008-10-06T12:37:00.000-07:00

I would urge you to read this although it is indeed disturbing. Particularly, when you think that this man could end up in the White House as president of this country.

http://www.truthout.org/100508A
Thursday 16 October 2008
by: Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone
A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty.

Searching for a Light at the End of the Tunnel

2008-10-06T12:30:00.000-07:00

That’s what I felt like I was doing this morning – I didn’t find it. Instead there were more horror stories as the Dow fell below ten thousand. I usually try to post something humorous in the middle of the day and in the evening, as a way to wind down the day, something of beauty with pictures from around our great country. I could find no humor this morning, the skies are gray and I’ll have to look harder for those beautiful pictures for this evening. What I did find was this article by Roger Cohen, Op-Ed columnist for the NYT, obviously my favorite paper. As I looked at the title I wondered how he was going to connect Kipling and Palin in any sense of the word. But he does it, although it surely didn’t brighten my day any. But it’s a great piece nevertheless and makes you wonder if Kipling was, indeed, able to look into the future.

Kiplin’ vs. Palin
By ROGER COHEN
Repeat after me: pigs can’t fly. Repeat after me: if you don’t work you die. Repeat after me: fire will certainly burn.

Perhaps these truths seem self-evident. But let’s face it, the whole Wall Street debacle, with its cost of some $700 billion to generations of Americans, was based on the fathomless human ability to disregard facts and believe in cloud-cuckoo-land.

Risk no longer existed. The penniless could afford a $200,000 house. Real estate prices could only rise. Securities full of toxic loans would prove benign. Debt was desirable, leverage lovely, greed great. Two and two made five. The moon was a balloon and streets were lined with gold.
How could it happen? That outraged question springs now to everyone’s lips. But from Dutch tulips to Californian dotcoms, great heists have happened and will again. No flight from reality is as sweet as the illusion that money grows on trees.

A friend wrote suggesting I take a look at Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “The Gods of the Copybook Headings,” in the light of current events. Written in 1919, when Kipling was 53, in an England drained by the Great War, which had taken the life of his teenage son, the poem makes sobering reading.

A copybook was a school exercise book used to practice handwriting. At the tops of pages, proverbs and sayings (like “Stick to the Devil You Know”) appeared in exemplary script to be copied down the page by pupils. The truisms were called “copybook headings.”

The poem begins:

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
And what are the qualities of these “Gods of the Copybook Headings?”

The fourth verse sets them out.

With the hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

The seventh verse reads:

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul:
But though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Truth, in short, confronts delusion and utopia.

Kipling is not much in fashion these days, other than for his children’s books. For a politically correct age, he speaks too bluntly of the world’s — and empire’s — cruel ironies. But his vivid evocation of war’s horror, man’s hypocrisy, illusion’s price and power’s passing make him important in this pivotal American moment.

As it happens — life’s ironies — I was reading Kipling after watching the vice-presidential debate, or more precisely Sarah Palin, the winking “Main-Streeter” from Wasilla. And the words of hers that rang in my ears were:

“One thing that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let’s commit ourselves just everyday American people, Joe Six Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say ‘Never Again.’ Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those managing our money and loaning us these dollars.”

Huh?

I’m sorry, Governor Palin, words matter. Life has its solemn lessons. “Never Again” is a hallowed phrase. It’s applicable not to the loss of a mortgage, but to the Holocaust and genocide.
According verbal equivalency to a $60,000 loan and six million murdered Jews, or 800,000 slaughtered Rwandans, is grotesque. Perhaps Palin didn’t mean it, but that’s no less serious. The world’s gravity escapes her.

Not Kipling, who wrote in “Epitaphs of the War” (1914-1918):

If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.
I wonder, after the lying and the dead of the Bush Administration, in the midst of the wars, in the face of 760,000 lost jobs, is Palin’s offer of a “little bit of reality from Wasilla Main Street” enough?

“The Gods of the Copybook Headings” ends:

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man —
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Palin, Mainstreeter that she is, loves to drop her g’s, so she’d no doubt call the poet Kiplin’. She might have asked, with that wink, to call him “Rud.”

That’s cutesy politics. But pigs still don’t have wings. The world’s still a dangerous place. It’s time for copybook realists in the White House.

A Look at a Different Future for America

2008-10-06T00:00:00.000-07:00

I think our country is in for some major changes in the near future, if it isn’t already happening. It has a lot to do with the shrinking of the world in general and of our growing dependence on other countries – a possibility we use to brush off as something that would never happen. But it has, thanks in part to the financial mess we find ourselves in today.

Thomas Friedman had a good piece in the NYT Op-Ed today and he spells it out so much better than I ever could, so here’s the major part of his column.

“Even though the dollar has strengthened a bit lately, we are going to need foreigners and sovereign wealth funds from China, Asia, Europe and the Middle East more than ever to survive this crisis — and they are going to need us to be healthy as well. In the process, we are going to become even more intertwined and dependent on the rest of the world.

Sarah Palin won’t have to worry that she doesn’t know what the Bush doctrine is. No one really knew what it meant. But it had something to do with the unilateral exercise of American power, and the next president’s ability to act unilaterally on anything other than vital national security issues is going to be reduced. As the old saying goes: He who has the gold makes the rules. Well, we no longer have as much gold, and until we get some, we will have to pay more heed to the rules of those who lend us theirs.

At a time when the U.S. government gets half its borrowings from abroad, at a time when the U.S. household savings rate is hovering around zero and China alone is already holding around $1 trillion in U.S. Treasury notes and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds — yes, that’s how you got that cheap subprime mortgage — it can’t be any other way.

Somebody better tell John McCain: We are all Swedes now. Forget about “Live Free or Die.” Until we get our financial act together, our motto is going to be: “Swedish spoken here — or Arabic or Chinese or German ...”

I would also bet that more and more of the foreign investors who come our way are going to want to buy hard, tangible assets — skyscrapers, real estate and real companies — not just mutual funds, T-bills, bank stocks or other equities. No problem. Americans own assets all over the world; foreigners have long owned substantial positions in U.S. companies. That’s globalization — and now you are going to see globalization and financial integration on steroids. It should help us, but also change us.

“The next round of capital that comes in from abroad is going to be much more demanding and move into real assets,” argued Jeffrey Garten, professor of trade and finance at the Yale School of Management. “Being a bigger debtor nation means losing even more of our sovereignty. It means conducting our economic policies with an eye toward whether others approve. It means bearing the advice and criticism that we have dispensed ad nauseam to other countries for over half a century. It means far more intensive consultations with other capitals on our fiscal policies and our monetary policies.”

At the same time, added Garten, “Corporate decisions will become more sensitive to international factors, in part because more non-Americans will be on the governing boards.” Ultimately, this could make American industry even more globally competitive — but for those who can’t pass global muster or enlist global collaborators, the consequences could be harsh.
Of course, neither Barack Obama nor John McCain dare talk about this now. They want to pretend nothing has really changed. The minute one of them steps into the Oval Office, they will tell us otherwise. That will be the January surprise.

There was a lot of talk after Russia invaded Georgia that globalization was over and we were seeing the return of “history” and the primacy of politics over economics. I think not. Politics and economics are always inextricably intertwined. History-making is rarely free. The Russian stock market has been hammered as a result of its invasion of Georgia, and the global slowdown has sunk Russian oil and gas earnings. No country is an island today.

Making history is not simply about the will to do so. It’s also about the way — the resources you have to achieve your ends. Whatever wills the next American president comes to office with, he is going to find that his ways have been diminished and restricted — until we roll up our sleeves and work our way out of this mess.”

Are we ready for a new day? A new role? Let’s hope we elect a president that can deal with the future in a much better way than Bush and the Republicans have dealt with the past eight years.

Oregon Coast

2008-10-05T13:00:00.000-07:00

Just one more view of a part of our magnificent country!
It's one of my favorite places.

How can we afford to elect people who only want to use
this country for their own benefit, people who don't care
about protecting it, preserving it for all those who will come
after us? Is their kind of legacy what we want to leave for
our children and grandchildren? Look at the beautiful
places in your own part of the country, then look at where we
are headed with more of the same in Washington. I keep
pushing this because I am passionate about our country
and its future. I hope you see what I see, hope for what I
hope for and believe we can make a difference, together.

What is Racism, Really?

2008-10-05T10:13:00.000-07:00

Earlier this morning I read an Op-Ed piece by Nicholas Kristof, NYT
that I found disturbing because I know it to be true from what I have personally discovered and experienced over the years. It is what a number of scholars call “racism without racists.” According to Mr.Kristof, “racism is difficult to measure, but a survey completed last month by Stanford University, with the AP and Yahoo, suggested that Mr. Obama’s support would be about six percentage points higher if he were white. That’s significant but surmountable. Most of the lost votes aren’t those dyed-in-the-wool racists. Such racists account for perhaps 10 percent of the electorate and, polling suggests, are mostly conservatives who would not vote for any Democratic presidential candidate.”

I would venture to say, and Mr. Kristof’s research seems to say the same thing, and that is that most whites who truly believe in equal rights will still recommend hiring white job candidates more readily that a black person with the identical credentials. Even though their folders may be totally the same except for one being labeled black and the other white, a white person making the selection will still choose the white applicant, but will think they are selecting on the basis of nonracial factors like experience.

It seems that conscious prejudice, as measured over time in surveys, has declined over the years, but the unconscious discrimination – what psychologists call aversive racism, has remained fairly constant.

Unfortunately, over and over again, I’ve found this to be quite true. Still on the other hand one could say that opposition to Obama is no more evidence of racism than the opposition to McCain is evidence of discrimination against the elderly. We are all quick to explain our reasons for voting for or against a particular candidate and I do believe that most Americans truly do not see themselves as racist or ageists, but how do they really explain the way they vote?

From the research that has been done it is very clear that racial biases are deeply ingrained within us. But at the same time, Mr. Kristof reminds us of a historical lesson on overcoming unconscious bias. That’s what happened with the decline in prejudice against Catholics after the candidacy of John F. Kennedy in 1960. Can we make this happen again? I don’t know, I hope so. It is time to move ahead and finally put prejudice of every kind behind us. I have said this before and I’ll probably repeat it several more times before this election is over, but regardless of the color of our skin, our age, rich or poor, educated or not, we all walk upright on two legs, we all yearn for the same opportunities, dream the same dreams for our future, for our children and grandchildren. It’s time to erase those lines that divide us so deeply and move ahead to help this country once again become the beacon of liberty, equality and hope that it once was. A belief, a dream that has been sadly damaged over the past eight years.

For the entire Op-Ed piece see: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/opinion/05kristof.html?th&emc=th,

Start Your Day With a BIG Laugh!

2008-10-05T00:00:00.000-07:00

These days I'm looking for humor wherever I can find it and a couple of my friends have supplied me with some choice tidbits. You saw one last evening and now I want to start your Sunday with a whoop! We've got another month of politics/Palin/McCain/Wall Street, let's laugh when and while we can!

From Newshound Dave Barry's Colonoscopy Journal

I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment -- for a colonoscopy. A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place,at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis. Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to mein a thorough, reassuring and patient manner. I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, quote, 'He’s going to stick a tube 17,000 feet up your behind!' I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called 'MoviPrep,' which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America's enemies. I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous. Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor. Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarmwater. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32gallons.) Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon. The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, 'a loose, watery bowel movement may result.' This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground. MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic, here, but: Have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much theMoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. Then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future & start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet. After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep.The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, 'What if Ispurt on Andy?' How do you apologize to a friend for something like that?Flowers would not be enough. At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked. Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand.Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep. At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this is,but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full FireHose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house. When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedureroom, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point. Andy had me roll over on my left side; and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand. There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was 'Dancing Queen' by ABBA. I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, 'DancingQueen' had to be the least appropriate.'You want me to turn it up?' said Andy, from somewhere behind me.'Ha ha,' I said. And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like. I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, ABBA was yelling 'Dancing Queen, feel the beat of the tambourine,' and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood. Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt. I felt excellent.I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that It was all over,and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ.

About the writer: Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humorcolumnist for the Miami Herald. On the subject of Colonoscopies...Colonoscopies are no joke, but these comments during the exam were quite humorous... A physician claimed that the following are actual comments made by his patients (predominately male) while he was performing their colonoscopies:
1. 'Take it easy, Doc. You're boldly going where no man has gone before!
2. 'Find Amelia Earhart yet?'
3. 'Can you hear me NOW?'
4. 'Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?'
5. 'You know, in Arkansas, we're now legally married.'
6. 'Any sign of the trapped miners, Chief?'
7. 'You put your left hand in, you take your left hand out...'
8. 'Hey! Now I know how a Muppet feels!'
9. 'If your hand doesn't fit, you must quit!
10. 'Hey Doc, let me know if you find my dignity.'
11. 'You used to be an executive at Enron, didn't you?'
12. 'God, now I know why I am not gay.' The best one of all:
13. 'Could you write a note for my wife saying my head is not up there?'

Debate Flow Chart

2008-10-04T19:00:00.000-07:00

I had two friends send this to me within five minutes of each other and it is funny

so I had to share it. Reads about right to me!

Financial Crisis - What You Should Know

2008-10-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

I have been looking for something in language I could understand to explain what this financial crisis is and what we should know about it. I found this article by Allison Linn, a senior writer for MSNBC and at least I could understand pretty much all that she said, so I thought I'd pass it on with the hope it might help someone else.

Crisis sparks confusion, questions about personal finanace.

While the rescue package is expected to help deal with the financial crisis, experts have warned that tough economic times are likely still ahead. Here’s what else you should know about how the crisis might affect your personal finances.

Checking and savings accountsNews that major banks including Washington Mutual and Wachovia have been pulled down by the crisis has sparked fears about whether Americans should trust their banking institutions to stay solvent.

Most banks are expected to continue functioning normally. Still, it pays to take a few simple steps to protect your assets in the event of a bank failure.

First, make sure that your bank is backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., better known as the FDIC. Under the changes approved in the bailout package, if your bank is a member of the FDIC then the amount of money insured would increase to $250,000 until at least the end of 2009.

Under previous rules, individual accounts were insured for up to $100,000, and joint accounts were insured for up to $200,000.

If you bank with a credit union, make sure that it is insured under the National Credit Union Insurance Fund, which provides similar protections for credit union account holders.

Retirement investments
The FDIC also provides coverage of up to $250,000 for certain retirement accounts, such as IRAs that are held in FDIC-insured financial institutions. If you have more than $100,000, it pays to check out the FDIC's online deposit insurance estimator.

Brokerage account
While most of us expect to see gains and losses as a result of investing in the stock market, some have raised concerns about what happens if the company that holds your investments runs into trouble.

If you are concerned, check to see whether your firm is a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corp., or SIPC. Created by Congress in 1970, SIPC covers investors for up to $500,000 in the event a brokerage fails or securities are stolen.

It’s important to note that this does NOT protect people whose investment portfolios lose value because of drops in the market or bad investments. That’s because investing in stocks and bonds is considered to be a risky endeavor, with upsides and downsides.

“They’re not guaranteeing the value of the stock,” said Barry Ritholtz, chief executive of the research firm FusionIQ and author of the forthcoming book “Bailout Nation.” “They’re guaranteeing $500,000 against the company going belly up.”

Some brokerage firms also have supplemental insurance for certain investments, should their brokerage fail.

Money markets
Money market funds often have been considered a safe haven for stashing cash that you don’t want in riskier investments, such as stocks. Recent troubles at one large money market fund sparked concerns that even these investments — considered by some to be safe as cash —are not completely secure.

Hoping to quell the anxiety, the Treasury Department recently stepped in to provide guarantees for money market funds, using a Depression-era fund to back them.

Mutual fund firms, also, have taken steps to comfort worried investors, including disclosing money market fund holdings and posting information about their investment decision-making.

Russ Kinnel, director of mutual fund research with Morningstar, said the best way to assure that your money is safe in a money market fund is to choose a relatively large, low-cost fund from a large company. Those steps should make it less likely the fund will make riskier investments, and more likely that the firm itself will make investors whole should the fund “break the buck,” or fall below the target of $1 per share.

Consumer credit
For many Americans, the credit crunch that is a key factor in the current financial crisis has been a relatively abstract idea, affecting mainly large financial institutions. As the crisis unfolds, economists say we could start to see more of an impact on people’s everyday lives.

Consumers who are trying to borrow money for a new car or new home, for example, might find it harder and more expensive to get a loan. Some might find it tougher to get a new credit card, said David Wyss, chief economist with Standard and Poor’s.

People who already have credit cards likely won’t see much change, although Wyss said some credit card companies are starting to reduce credit lines for riskier clients.

“They’re getting tougher on who they lend money to,” he said.

Business credit
Economists are watching closely to see if the credit crunch is going to make it harder for small- and midsized business owners to borrow money.

That, in turn, could crimp their ability to do business, leading to layoffs and affecting related businesses. It also could make it tougher for entrepreneurs to find money for starting new businesses.

Mortgages
The crisis on Wall Street shouldn’t have a direct impact on people who are paying their mortgages on time.

If you are seeking to refinance your mortgage or take out a second mortgage, however, you may find it to be more difficult, if not impossible, because of stricter lending requirements.

A Peaceful Retreat to Orcas Island

2008-10-03T19:00:00.000-07:00

After such a frustrating week, how about slipping away

to Orcas Island? Beautiful sky, clouds, water and a happy seagull.

These are the things that matter. Time to put all the ugly politics, the

frustrations behind and slip away -- even in our imagination, for a quiet

and beautiful weekend. We all need that time to regroup and focus on what is really

important and those things include our children, grandchildren, families, friends and all the

beautiful things that can and do fill our lives when we are open to receive them.

Time for a Giggle or Two

2008-10-03T14:30:00.000-07:00

As those of you who follow my blog know, I can only deal with politics, Republicans, Wall Street,and the anger and frustration that seem to accompany anything having to do with the afore mentioned for just so long -- particularly since it doesn't appear as if the big picture is going to improve anytime soon. So, I turn to the little humorous truths so frequently sent to me by my 84 year old, good friend Fran, who is sharper and funnier than many and she still follows politics! I need to get her recipe. Maybe we can all start with these.

Eight Words with two Meanings

1. THINGY (thing-ee) n.
Female...... Any part under a car's hood.
Male..... The strap fastener on a woman's bra.

2. VULNERABLE (vul-ne-ra-bel) adj.
Female.... Fully opening up one's self emotionally to another.
Male.. Playing hockey without a cup.

3. COMMUNICATION (ko-myoo-ni-kay-shon) n.
Female... The open sharing of thoughts and feelings with one's partner.
Male... Leaving a note before taking off on a fishing trip with the boys.

4. COMMITMENT (ko-mit-ment) n.
Female.... A desire to get married and raise a family.
Male...... Trying not to hit on other women while out with this one.

5. ENTERTAINMENT (en-ter-tayn-ment) n.
Femal e.... A good movie, concert, play or book.
Male...... Anything that can be done while drinking beer.

6. FLATULENCE (flach-u-lens) n.
Female.... An embarrassing byproduct of indigestion.
Male...... A source of entertainment, self-expression, male bonding.

7 MAKING LOVE (may-king luv) n.
Female..... The greatest expression of intimacy a couple can achieve.
Male.. Call it whatever you want, just as long as we do it.

8. REMOTE CONTROL (ri-moht kon-trohl) n.
Female.... A device for changing from one TV channel to another.
Male... A device for scanning through all 375 channels every 5 minutes.

AND --

He said . . . I don't know why you wear a bra; you've got nothing to put in it.
She said . . . You wear pants don't you?

He said . . ..... Shall we try swapping positions tonight?
She said . . ....That's a good idea - you stand by the sink and do the dishes while I sit on the sofa and fart!

He said . ... What have you been doing with all the grocery money I gave you?
She said . .....Turn sideways and look in the mirror!

He said . . How many men does it take to change a roll of toilet paper?
She said . . We don't know; it has never happened.

She said... What do you call a woman who knows where her husband is every night?
He said . . . A widow

He said . .Why are married women heavier than single women?
She said . . Single women come home, see what's in the fridge and go to bed. Married women come home, see what's in bed and go to the fridge.

What Choices Do We Have? Not many!

2008-10-03T06:33:00.000-07:00

I've been disturbed by the very idea of a bailout and, yet, as the days have slipped by more and more of what I have read by those who do know what they're talking about, say it's vital, if for one reason only -- to buy us some more time to work out a better solution. And they are saying this even though they don't like the idea either and see all the trinkets that have been added in order to get the bill passed. Paul Krugman, like Thomas Friedman is saying pretty much the same thing. I posted Friedman's Op-Ed article earlier and here is Krugman's.

October 3, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist

Edge of the Abyss

By PAUL KRUGMAN

As recently as three weeks ago it was still possible to argue that the state of the U.S. economy, while clearly not good, wasn’t disastrous — that the financial system, while under stress, wasn’t in full meltdown and that Wall Street’s troubles weren’t having that much impact on Main Street.

But that was then.

The financial and economic news since the middle of last month has been really, really bad. And what’s truly scary is that we’re entering a period of severe crisis with weak, confused leadership.
The wave of bad news began on Sept. 14. Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, thought he could get away with letting Lehman Brothers, the investment bank, fail; he was wrong. The plight of investors trapped by Lehman’s collapse — as an article in The Times put it, Lehman became “the Roach Motel of Wall Street: They checked in, but they can’t check out” — created panic in the financial markets, which has only grown worse as the days go by. Indicators of financial stress have soared to the equivalent of a 107-degree fever, and large parts of the financial system have simply shut down.

There’s growing evidence that the financial crunch is spreading to Main Street, with small businesses having trouble raising money and seeing their credit lines cut. And leading indicators for both employment and industrial production have turned sharply worse, suggesting that even before Lehman’s fall, the economy, which has been sagging since last year, was falling off a cliff.
How bad is it? Normally sober people are sounding apocalyptic. On Thursday, the bond trader and blogger John Jansen declared that current conditions are “the financial equivalent of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution,” while Joel Prakken of Macroeconomic Advisers says that the economy seems to be on “the edge of the abyss.”

And the people who should be steering us away from that abyss are out to lunch.
The House will probably vote on Friday on the latest version of the $700 billion bailout plan — originally the Paulson plan, then the Paulson-Dodd-Frank plan, and now, I guess, the Paulson-Dodd-Frank-Pork plan (it’s been larded up since the House rejected it on Monday). I hope that it passes, simply because we’re in the middle of a financial panic, and another no vote would make the panic even worse. But that’s just another way of saying that the economy is now hostage to the Treasury Department’s blunders.

For the fact is that the plan on offer is a stinker — and inexcusably so. The financial system has been under severe stress for more than a year, and there should have been carefully thought-out contingency plans ready to roll out in case the markets melted down. Obviously, there weren’t: the Paulson plan was clearly drawn up in haste and confusion. And Treasury officials have yet to offer any clear explanation of how the plan is supposed to work, probably because they themselves have no idea what they’re doing.

Despite this, as I said, I hope the plan passes, because otherwise we’ll probably see even worse panic in the markets. But at best, the plan will buy some time to seek a real solution to the crisis.
And that raises the question: Do we have that time?

A solution to our economic woes will have to start with a much better-conceived rescue of the financial system — one that will almost surely involve the U.S. government taking partial, temporary ownership of that system, the way Sweden’s government did in the early 1990s. Yet it’s hard to imagine the Bush administration taking that step.

We also desperately need an economic stimulus plan to push back against the slump in spending and employment. And this time it had better be a serious plan that doesn’t rely on the magic of tax cuts, but instead spends money where it’s needed. (Aid to cash-strapped state and local governments, which are slashing spending at precisely the worst moment, is also a priority.) Yet it’s hard to imagine the Bush administration, in its final months, overseeing the creation of a new Works Progress Administration.

So we probably have to wait for the next administration, which should be much more inclined to do the right thing — although even that’s by no means a sure thing, given the uncertainty of the election outcome. (I’m not a fan of Mr. Paulson’s, but I’d rather have him at the Treasury than, say, Phil “nation of whiners” Gramm.)

And while the election is only 32 days away, it will be almost four months until the next administration takes office. A lot can — and probably will — go wrong in those four months.
One thing’s for sure: The next administration’s economic team had better be ready to hit the ground running, because from day one it will find itself dealing with the worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Sky Watch! Sunset From Our Deck in Seattle

2008-10-02T12:30:00.000-07:00

These views are what soothe the soul and rescue one's sanity and reveal what is really important in life.

What Is It About Age John McCain Doesn't Understand?

2008-10-02T06:54:00.000-07:00

An old friend of mine who lives in California sent this to me this morning and while it's six weeks after McCain's birthday, I thought it brought up some worthwhile thoughts that were worth sharing. All of us who have stepped, jumped, stumbled, limped or crept into our 70s can recognize the things he talks about, but if we "ordinary" folks can recognize how these things affect us and whatever tasks we take on, why is it that John McCain has so much difficulty recognizing them?

Happy Birthday Wishes to John McCain

Dear John,
As we celebrate our respective 72nd birthdays it is apparent that we have a lot in common. You were born on August 29, 1936; I was born two days later on August 31st. While you went to the Naval Academy, I attended Stanford and we both graduated near the bottom of our respective classes. We were commissioned as Naval Officers in 1958 and each of us failed in our first marriages. Luckily, however, we both are now happily married to successful women who each are over 18 years younger than we - quite a challenge to keep up with them, and a real incentive to enjoy life after 72.

While I cannot claim an experience comparable to five years in captivity in Vietnam, it is apparent that our Navy service has substantially affected our lives. You recovered from your captivity to become a lobbyist for the Navy and then a Congressman and Senator. After the Navy, I "grew up," applied myself, headed the University of Chicago Law Review and became a trial lawyer. We both have been life-long Republicans and we both personally knew and were influenced by Barry Goldwater. We both believe in service to our country, but have we learned to recognize our limitations?

Where we differ - John - is that I know that I am too old to be President of the United States. From every indication, you are too.

There is a reason that nobody our age has previously run for the highest office in the land. I am much too old to be a CEO of a major corporation. How many captains of industry have assumed the helm at age 72? And, as you more than I know, by 72 virtually all of the Generals and Admirals have been sent off into retirement. What I absolutely do know John is that I am now too old to run a major law firm or to try a major case as lead counsel. Where I used to bill over 2,000 hours a year and work late into the night and on weekends, now I am awake late at night contemplating my prostrate. It's not a complaint, John - just a fact of life - I just don't have the stamina anymore to work the hours required of a chief executive much less as our nation's President.

While unlike you, I regularly use the internet, I recognize that technology is passing me by and I must rely upon others to do things I used to do well myself. While I have been in good health, exercise strenuously and play hardball in a league with players as young as 30 year olds, I am just not what I used to be when it comes to dealing with a crisis or working long hours. Each morning as I climb out of bed my aching limbs remind me of my age and mortality. Given your POW experience and medical history, I cannot imagine that you are not experiencing the same.

I also find that my memory is slipping. I have always had excellent recall, but now and again I am frustrated by the fact that I am occasionally drawing a blank when seeking to remember a name or event. I can still come up with the information, just not as quickly or as accurately. In that connection, I often find myself either embellishing or confabulating events of my past life. Those old stories just keep getting better and I find myself telling them over and over again to the point of tedium. I also find that I am less diplomatic and more prickly than before, so I fully understand your frustration in dealing with that Time writer who wanted to know your definition of "honor." From observing you throughout this campaign I know that you are sharing my experiences. At 72 we should not have to explain ourselves and we have earned the right to lose it occasionally. That said, however, John I am not sure that approach works in diplomacy or that it is appropriate for the President of the United States.

John, we both have a wealth of experience in our chosen areas of endeavor and we have much to contribute based upon our age and experience-but I know that given our age we both have blind spots in dealing with the challenges of the 21st Century. Our experience can only take us so far - at some point we must pay our respect to father time. That is the reason why, in business, law and politics, age matters.

John, on our 72nd birthdays I wish you well for a long and distinguished career in a role that is appropriate for our age - the United States Senate.

With all best wishes and Happy Birthday,

William A. Wineberg
Stanford, Class of 58
U.S.Navy 1958-61

Attorney at Law
150 Post Street, Suite 742
San Francisco, Ca. 94108
Phone: 415 434 1200
Fax: 415 296 8552
Email: bill@wineberglaw.com
Web: http://www.wineberglaw.com/

Kids Are Quick, Maybe We Should Consult Them!

2008-10-01T21:00:00.000-07:00

It's been a long day, everyone trying to figure out what's going to happen next -- now that the bailout has been passed by the Senate. Who knows, maybe we should ask these kids, they seem to have an answer for everything.

TEACHER: Maria, go to the map and find North America
MARIA: Here it is.
TEACHER: Correct. Now class, who discovered America ?
CLASS: Maria

TEACHER: John, why are you doing your math multiplication on the floor?
JOHN: You told me to do it without using table.

TEACHER: Glenn, how do you spell 'crocodile?'
GLENN: K-R-O-K-O-D-I-A-L'
TEACHER: No, that's wrong
GLENN: Maybe it is wrong, but you asked me how I spell it.

TEACHER: Donald, what is the chemical formula for water?
DONALD: H I J K L M N O.
TEACHER: What are you talking about?
DONALD: Yesterday you said it's H to O

TEACHER: Winnie, name one important thing we have today that we didn't have ten years ago.
WINNIE: Me!

TEACHER: Glen, why do you always get so dirty?
GLEN: Well, I'm a lot closer to the ground than you are.

TEACHER: George Washington not only chopped down his father's cherry tree, but also admitted it. Now, Louie, do you know why his father didn't punish him?
LOUIS: Because George still had the axe in his hand.

TEACHER: Now, Simon, tell me frankly, do you say prayers before eating?
SIMON: No sir, I don't have to, my Mom is a good cook.

TEACHER: Clyde , your composition on 'My Dog' is exactly the same as your brother's. Did you copy his?
CLYDE : No, sir. It's the same dog.

TEACHER: Harold, what do you call a person who keeps on talking when people no longer interested?
HAROLD: A teacher .

Taking a Deeper Look

2008-10-01T15:00:00.000-07:00

Like almost everyone else I know, I've been outraged by the idea of bailing out Wall Street. But then I began to realize that there was a whole lot that I didn't know or understand. The more I have read over the past couple of days, the more I've come to realize there's a great deal more to all of this than immediately meets the eye. This country is angry and bitter and outraged at the antics of the White House and Wall Street and it is only natural that the idea of handing them even more money was asking to get screwed again. And yet I kept hearing people that I have great respect for saying things that just didn't jibe with the general reaction. I'm still not totally sure just what I believe or what I feel the answer is, but I did begin to see a different side that made sense to me when I read Thomas Friedman's OP-ED piece today. I'm not going to quote from it because I'm not sure I would do it justice, so I'm including the whole piece here. I do hope you will take the time to read it and think about it.

October 1, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist

Rescue the Rescue

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

I was channel surfing on Monday, following the stock market’s nearly 800-point collapse, when a commentator on CNBC caught my attention. He was being asked to give advice to viewers as to what were the best positions to be in to ride out the market storm. Without missing a beat, he answered: “Cash and fetal.”

I’m in both — because I know an unprecedented moment when I see one. I’ve been frightened for my country only a few times in my life: In 1962, when, even as a boy of 9, I followed the tension of the Cuban missile crisis; in 1963, with the assassination of J.F.K.; on Sept. 11, 2001; and on Monday, when the House Republicans brought down the bipartisan rescue package.
But this moment is the scariest of all for me because the previous three were all driven by real or potential attacks on the U.S. system by outsiders. This time, we are doing it to ourselves. This time, it’s our own failure to regulate our own financial system and to legislate the proper remedy that is doing us in.

I’ve always believed that America’s government was a unique political system — one designed by geniuses so that it could be run by idiots. I was wrong. No system can be smart enough to survive this level of incompetence and recklessness by the people charged to run it.
This is dangerous. We have House members, many of whom I suspect can’t balance their own checkbooks, rejecting a complex rescue package because some voters, whom I fear also don’t understand, swamped them with phone calls. I appreciate the popular anger against Wall Street, but you can’t deal with this crisis this way.

This is a credit crisis. It’s all about confidence. What you can’t see is how bank A will no longer lend to good company B or mortgage company C. Because no one is sure the other guy’s assets and collateral are worth anything, which is why the government needs to come in and put a floor under them. Otherwise, the system will be choked of credit, like a body being choked of oxygen and turning blue.

Well, you say, “I don’t own any stocks — let those greedy monsters on Wall Street suffer.” You may not own any stocks, but your pension fund owned some Lehman Brothers commercial paper and your regional bank held subprime mortgage bonds, which is why you were able refinance your house two years ago. And your local airport was insured by A.I.G., and your local municipality sold municipal bonds on Wall Street to finance your street’s new sewer system, and your local car company depended on the credit markets to finance your auto loan — and now that the credit market has dried up, Wachovia bank went bust and your neighbor lost her secretarial job there.

We’re all connected. As others have pointed out, you can’t save Main Street and punish Wall Street anymore than you can be in a rowboat with someone you hate and think that the leak in the bottom of the boat at his end is not going to sink you, too. The world really is flat. We’re all connected. “Decoupling” is pure fantasy.

I totally understand the resentment against Wall Street titans bringing home $60 million bonuses. But when the credit system is imperiled, as it is now, you have to focus on saving the system, even if it means bailing out people who don’t deserve it. Otherwise, you’re saying: I’m going to hold my breath until that Wall Street fat cat turns blue. But he’s not going to turn blue; you are, or we all are. We have to get this right.

My rabbi told this story at Rosh Hashana services on Tuesday: A frail 80-year-old mother is celebrating her birthday and her three sons each give her a present. Harry gives her a new house. Harvey gives her a new car and driver. And Bernie gives her a huge parrot that can recite the entire Torah. A week later, she calls her three sons together and says: “Harry, thanks for the nice house, but I only live in one room. Harvey, thanks for the nice car, but I can’t stand the driver. Bernie, thanks for giving your mother something she could really enjoy. That chicken was delicious.”

Message to Congress: Don’t get cute. Don’t give us something we don’t need. Don’t give us something designed to solve your political problems. Yes, Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke need to accept strict oversights and the taxpayer must be guaranteed a share in the upside profits from all rescued banks. But other than that, give them the capital and the flexibility to put out this fire.

I always said to myself: Our government is so broken that it can only work in response to a huge crisis. But now we’ve had a huge crisis, and the system still doesn’t seem to work. Our leaders, Republicans and Democrats, have gotten so out of practice of working together that even in the face of this system-threatening meltdown they could not agree on a rescue package, as if they lived on Mars and were just visiting us for the week, with no stake in the outcome.
The story cannot end here. If it does, assume the fetal position.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/opinion/01friedman.html?th&emc=th

A Toast to Paul Newman

2008-10-01T08:59:00.000-07:00

I was and am a big fan of Paul Newman, who died this past week of cancer, not just because he was drop dead gorgeous and a great actor, but because he was first and foremost a great humanitarian. He raised huge sums of money for worthwhile causes with his Newman's Own dressings -- which I also love. He had a marvelous sense of humor and a great view of the world.

Maureen Dowd wrote a piece about him today in the New York Times. It's worth the read whether you were a fan or not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/opinion/01dowd.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

What Does “Bailout” Really Mean?

2008-09-30T21:30:00.000-07:00

I think a lot of what has gotten Americans so upset over the idea of a “bailout” is the rhetoric. But what does it all really mean? Wayne Fields, an expert on political rhetoric at Washington University in St. Louis, said "talking about it as a bailout has hurt" the plan's chances. That's because most Americans don't understand the intricacies of what's involved but can relate to seeing their tax dollars used to reward those who helped create the mess in the first place.
"I don't think you can change the language now," he said.

Well, I don’t think you can change the language now either, but obviously something needs to be done. And everyone seems to have their own take on how to sell the idea to the American people.

"Let's not call it a bailout. Let's call it a rescue," said Republican John McCain.

Democratic rival Barack Obama said, "This is no longer just a Wall Street crisis — it's an American crisis, and it's the American economy that needs this rescue plan."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's take: It’s not a bailout but "a buy in, so that we can turn our economy around."

Bush, McCain, Obama and top congressional leaders agree the plan — which would nationalize large numbers of bad mortgages and securities tied to them — is needed to unclog the nation's financial arteries.

According to Bob Herbert, NYT Op-Ed columnist, “for years now the leaders of the right have carried the day and whatever restraints were still intact when George Bush took office in 2000 were quickly removed. And these are the people who led us into the multitrillion-dollar debacle in Iraq, crafted tax policies that benefited millionaires and billionaires while at the same time ran up staggering amounts of government debt. This is the crowd that contributed mightily to the greatest disparities in wealth in the U.S. since the gilded age. They cut the cords of corporate and financial regulations and in many other way hacked away at the best interests of the United States.”

Bush and his cronies have put the entire economy in danger. And many of these people, such as Phil Gramm and Carly Fiorina are snuggled in tight with McCain and we’re supposed to trust these people to act in the interest of Americans today?

I surely am not nearly smart enough to know what the answers to all these questions are, answers that we need and soon. White House spokesman Tony Fratto agreed the administration's initial efforts to explain the legislation to Congress and the public left something to be desired. Duh!!

"We need to be able to better demonstrate that there are impacts for American families, for retirees, for small businesses for larger businesses who are hiring, for our banking system, for the ability to get home loans, for businesses to be able to make their payrolls, their small-business accounts," Fratto said.

He said "it's a hard thing to do" because of the complexity of both the problem and the solution. "There are four or five steps involved ... before you get to the kitchen table of the average American family and how it affects them."

Bush was trying on Tuesday.

Well, guess what? They all need to try harder.

For the VP debate you might want to try this:
http://www.mercurynews.com/presidentelect/ci_10600503

Check out this website. I believe you can watch the VP debate here and do live blogging and read other bloggers comments as the debate goes on.

Anyone Want to Go to the Market?

2008-09-30T16:00:00.001-07:00

This is a collection of photos from Pike's Market in Seattle

and it is one of the most fun places to shop for just about

any and everything. I love the way they display their food!

You may not go there hungry, but you will be by the time

you've walked around for a bit. And the food is just as

delicious as it looks!

Archives are Wonderful!

2008-09-29T23:30:00.000-07:00

How about this for amazing foresight!! Nine years ago—this one is priceless and worth the read - right out of New York Times - 1999 September 30, 1999.

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending

By STEVEN A. HOLMES

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will
purchase from banks and other lenders. The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits. In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans. ''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said *_Franklin D. Raines_*, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market. In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times.

But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's. ''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings

The Evening Pictures

2008-09-29T19:30:00.000-07:00

Seattle, it takes my breath away!

What Are the Answers? And Who Has Them?

2008-09-29T14:29:00.000-07:00

And here I go with the questions again. Like I’m sure nearly everyone else, I’ve been following the downhill tumble of the Dow Jones, the defeat of the bailout and asking, ‘what’s next’?

I don’t think that there is any doubt that the next president is going to have to deal with more than one major financial crisis. Who’s ready to do that? I do agree with Paul Krugman, NYT Op-Ed Columnist, who says that Obama seems well informed and sensible about matters economic and financial. I also agree with him when he says John McCain scares him -- he scares me, too.

Maybe Obama could have shown more leadership in regards to the bailout during the debate over the bailout bill, but that pales in comparison to McCain who was frightening before and is even more so now. We know he doesn’t know much, if anything really useful, about economics – he said so himself. Of course, he denied later that he had said it, but even that wouldn’t matter if he had surrounded himself with capable, knowledgeable advisors, but he didn’t. Gramm is still around even if it’s in the shadows after his “nation of whiners” statement. How do you feel about him as Secretary of the Treasury? I don’t think so!

McCain’s views have gotten progressively erratic. He’ll have a very strong opinion one day and a short time later he will go off in an entirely different direction. He’s still declaring that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong”, and this when the financial crisis had entered a new and even more dangerous stage. He was threatening to fire the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which isn’t in the president’s power.

Then there was the rant about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and claiming that Obama was under their influence, when as it turned out, the firm owned by his own campaign manager was being paid by them until last month.

In spite of the fact that Paulson’s plan was only three pages long, McCain finally admitted that he hadn’t actually read it!

You can talk tough, stomp your feet, shake your fists at the evildoers all you want, but that isn’t what is needed in the office of President of the United States!

Again, my thanks to Paul Krugman! To read his complete article http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/29/opinion/29krugman.html?ref=opinion

Colorful Collage to End the Day

2008-09-28T19:30:00.000-07:00

In spite of all the political frustrations, worries and concerns

about our country, as night falls I want to remember

the beauty that is always there.

May you all have a lovely evening.

When is Enough, Enough?

2008-09-28T11:30:00.000-07:00

I realize that I’m always asking questions in my posts and maybe it’s because I never seem to be able to find the answers I’m looking for – maybe no one else knows the answers either. But when do we start looking at the bigger picture? When do we finally get the picture that McCain cares more about trying to win this election than he does about the good of our country. And when do people in this country recognize that his idiotic behavior has nothing to do with the actual problems, but only what he sees as a way to show himself in whatever light will make him look good and help him win the presidency. It’s all about McCain not about the future of this country. Frank Rich’s Op-Ed piece in the NYT discusses this and it’s well worth the read
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/opinion/28rich.html?th&emc=th

But that’s only one of the major problems we have to deal with. The other things that scare me are the things I see and hear about that are happening in different places around the country where people are lambasting Muslims and they are cheap, not so subtle tricks to try and undermine Obama. In Portland, Oregon a DVD doing just that was included in the delivered copies of the newspaper paper, The Oregonian. In a town in New Mexico at a local golf course, the secretary of the organization used the membership mailing list to send out a message about "Why Muslims Can't Be Americans." What are people thinking? Or is that the problem? Fear and ignorance is beginning to overwhelm this country right now and when that happens we can say goodbye to all the hopes and dreams of so many. It is terrifying to think just where our country is going to wind up if these sorts of things continue. For more on this see http://texastooregon.blogspot.com/ and http://zeesgowest.blogspot.com/

Surely, we are better citizens than this! The world has become too small for us to just consider ourselves as citizens of the United States, whether we like the idea or not we are citizens of the world and that’s as it should be, particularly now. If we can extend our view to a new conception of “we are the world” what a difference we could make, not just here in this country, but everywhere.

It’s not just this election, it’s not just McCain’s tactics, it’s not just the totally unprepared for office, Sarah Palin, it’s our future, our country’s future, the future of our children and grandchildren that is at stake here. So, I ask again, when is enough, enough?

A Collage of Beauty, Color and Variety

2008-09-27T23:00:00.001-07:00

Enjoy! Smile! Be thankful for all we have!

And You Thought History Was Boring!

2008-09-27T18:00:00.000-07:00

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor, hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all, the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, don't throw the baby out with the bath
water.

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all of the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying, it's raining cats and dogs. There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, Dirt poor.

The wealthy had slate floors that wouldget slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all startslipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying a thresh hold.
(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, bring home the bacon. They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat..

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing leadpoisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for thenext 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous. Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust. Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake. England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a -- dead ringer!And that's the truth...

Now, whoever said History was boring ! ! !

Another Look at “Unqualified”!

2008-09-27T10:18:00.000-07:00

Just what is it about the word "unqualified" that so many people in this country just don’t seem to understand these days? You know, unqualified as in SARAH PALIN???

We’re all so focused on the financial mess that the Bushies have helped get us into that we’re really not paying enough attention to the cloud of disaster waiting to happen if John McCain wins the election with “moose meat” as his VP. And I say “helped”, because we have turned a blind eye to so much of what has been happening in this country since Bush shoved his way into the White House. And now we need to wake up, stand up, and take our country back.

We have all seen in the past that a vice president must be ready to step into the oval office on a moment’s notice. There is no indication whatsoever that Palin is anywhere near ready to assume the monumental challenge of the highest office in our country.

No matter how much the Republicans may try to shield her from the media, she is, has been and will be a total embarrassment in interviews and that’s the least of their worries and should be the least of ours as well. To quote an article by Bob Herbert in a New York Times Op-Ed article, “The idea that the voters of the United States might install someone in the vice president’s office who is too unprepared or too intellectually insecure to appear on, say, “Meet the Press” or “Face the Nation” is mindboggling.” And I couldn’t agree more “that this could actually be funny if it were part of a Monty Python sketch.”

Palin’s interview with Katie Couric was a total disaster as she continued to tout her being able to see Russia from Alaska as all the experience she needs to fill the role of vice president. The press does indeed have an obligation to hammer away at Palin’s qualifications – to be sure not enough Americans seem to be questioning them.

I most certainly do not want to see John McCain win this election, but if, as in my nightmares, he does, he’d truly better find a replacement for Sarah Palin on his ticket.

Dahlias in Canby, Oregon

2008-09-26T20:04:00.000-07:00

And another weekend is here, time to pause and take a deep breath, and enjoy, although that's not as necessary as it was years ago when I was still working and the weekends were sometimes divided between enjoying some down time as well as in preparation for another week.

Politics are the big thing tonight and probably through the weekend, but I don't want to talk politics tonight -- I'll do that tomorrow. Right now I just want to look at some lovely pictures, beautiful clouds and flowers. Listen to some beautiful music -- Gustav Mahler tonight, one of my favorites. A good friend of mine once said, if God could speak, he'd sound like Mahler. I think he was right.

It is beautiful here in Seattle with clear skies and the promise of lots of sun and warm temps for the weekend, probably the last kiss of summer. I had dinner out on the deck and watched the clouds gather over Puget Sound -- not storm clouds, just big, puffy marshmallow clouds. The sun was warm on my face and it was easy to push all the ugliness of this campaign to a remote corner of the yard -- the one the dogs use as a bathroom -- seemed appropriate all things considered.

To all of you out there in blogland, I wish you a beautiful, refreshing and peaceful weekend -- a time to renew our energy and our enthusiasm -- for what is life without those? Stick your frazzled nerves, the anger, the frustrations and fears into a closet somewhere and smell the roses, that other stuff will find us again soon enough so take a trip here through the fields of flowers.

I wish you pleasant dreams.

Lots of flowers.

Lots of sunshine.

Lots of laughter.

A Fascinating Distraction

2008-09-26T15:44:00.000-07:00

I have a good friend in Dallas, Texas who works at Fossil where my son, David, is also employed. She is a supervisor in the photography department. She’s very interested in photojournalism and sent me these websites. They are fascinating and I thought some of you who are interested in photography might enjoy them. At least, I know I did. They’re truly interesting and beautiful regardless.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, is touted as the father of modern photojournalism. Paula has just discovered his work. These shots are terrific http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/cb/index.htm, but I would never have recognized Truman Capote!

The documentary about Cartier-Bresson is called, “The Impassioned Eye” and is excellent!http://www.palmpictures.com/film/-henri-cartier-bresson-the-impassioned-eye.php. He led a fascinating life and had such an analytical/mathematical perspective on shooting photography.

I found them to be an interesting and refreshing break from politics – at least for a bit, and thought I’d share them with you.

All is Well in Seattle

2008-09-26T14:00:00.000-07:00

It was a long and nightmarish day, but all is well now. My old email account is shut down, I have a new one.

Wanted to share a bit of humor from my old and good friend, Mako. Believe me, after a day like yesterday, I can use a good laugh. Hope you can, too.

The Right Grandma

The doctor that had been seeing an 80-year-old woman for most of her life finally retired. At her next checkup, the new doctor told her to bring a list of all the medicines that had been prescribed for her.

As the young doctor was looking through these, his eyes grew wide as he realized she had a prescription for birth control pills.

'Mrs. Smith, do you realize these are BIRTH CONTROL pills?'

''Yes, they help me sleep at night.''

'Mrs. Smith, I assure you there is absolutely NOTHING in these that could possibly help you sleep!'

She reached out and patted the young Doctor's knee.

"Yes, dear, I know that. But every morning, I grind one up and mix it in the glass of orange juice that my 16-year-old-granddaughter drinks. And, believe me, it helps me sleep at night.

Hmmmm! Too bad that the daughter of you-know-who didn't have nice grandma like this one.

Realism Not Rage

2008-09-26T08:07:00.000-07:00

This hasn't been one of my better weeks as most of you know after yesterday's battle with hackers. But before all that began I had read this article by Roger Cohen and thought it made so much sense. I understand all the anger we're feeling right now, I feel it too, but we must not let our anger blind us to what our country needs -- leaders with cool heads, who look at and explore all the options before taking action, who realize the world has shrunk and that, like it or not, we are citizens of the world as well as of the United States. We all need to work together to bring about a new day, not only in our country, but contribute to helping bring a new day of cooperation with and respect for the rest of the world. We're all in this together -- like it or not.

September 25, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Palin’s American Exception
By ROGER COHEN

Sarah Palin loves the word “exceptional.” At a rally in Nevada the other day, the Republican vice-presidential candidate said: “We are an exceptional nation.” Then she declared: “America is an exceptional country.” In case anyone missed that, she added: “You are all exceptional Americans.”

I have to hand it to Palin, she may be onto something in her batty way: the election is very much about American exceptionalism.

This is the idea, around since the founding fathers, and elaborated on by Alexis de Toqueville, that the United States is a nation unlike any other with a special mission to build the “city upon a hill” that will serve as liberty’s beacon for mankind.

But exceptionalism has taken an ugly twist of late. It’s become the angry refuge of the America that wants to deny the real state of the world.

From an inspirational notion, however flawed in execution, that has buttressed the global spread of liberty, American exceptionalism has morphed into the fortress of those who see themselves threatened by “one-worlders” (read Barack Obama) and who believe it’s more important to know how to dress moose than find Mumbai.

That’s Palinism, a philosophy delivered without a passport and with a view (on a clear day) of Russia.

Behind Palinism lies anger. It’s been growing as America’s relative decline has become more manifest in falling incomes, imploding markets, massive debt and rising new centers of wealth and power from Shanghai to Dubai.

The damn-the-world, God-chose-us rage of that America has sharpened as U.S. exceptionalism has become harder to square with the 21st-century world’s interconnectedness. How exceptional can you be when every major problem you face, from terrorism to nuclear proliferation to gas prices, requires joint action?

Very exceptional, insists Palin, and so does John McCain by choosing her. (He has said: “I do believe in American exceptionalism. We are the only nation I know that really is deeply concerned about adhering to the principle that all of us are created equal.”)

America is distinct. Its habits and attitudes with respect to religion, patriotism, voting and the death penalty, for example, differ from much of the rest of the developed world. It is more ideological than other countries, believing still in its manifest destiny. At its noblest, it inspires still.

But, let’s face it, from Baghdad to Bear Stearns the last eight years have been a lesson in the price of exceptionalism run amok.

To persist with a philosophy grounded in America’s separateness, rather than its connectedness, would be devastating at a time when the country faces two wars, a financial collapse unseen since 1929, commodity inflation, a huge transfer of resources to the Middle East, and the imperative to develop new sources of energy.

Enough is enough.

The basic shift from the cold war to the new world is from MAD (mutual assured destruction) to MAC (mutual assured connectedness). Technology trumps politics. Still, Bush and Cheney have demonstrated that politics still matter.

Which brings us to the first debate — still scheduled for Friday — between Obama and McCain on foreign policy. It will pit the former’s universalism against the latter’s exceptionalism.
I’m going to try to make this simple. On the Democratic side you have a guy whose campaign has been based on the Internet, who believes America may have something to learn from other countries (like universal health care) and who’s unafraid in 2008 to say he’s a “proud citizen of the United States and a fellow citizen of the world.”

On the Republican side, you have a guy who, in 2008, is just discovering the Net and Google and whose No. 2 is a woman who got a passport last year and believes she understands Russia because Alaska is closer to Siberia than Alabama.

If I were Obama, I’d put it this way: “Senator McCain, the world you claim to understand is the world of yesterday. A new century demands new thinking. Our country cannot be made fundamentally secure by a man who thought our economy was fundamentally sound.”
American exceptionalism, taken to extremes, leaves you without the allies you need (Iraq), without the influence you want (Iran) and without any notion of risk (Wall Street). The only exceptionalism that resonates, as Obama put it to me last year, is one “based on our Constitution, our principles, our values and our ideals.”

In a superb recent piece on the declining global influence of the Supreme Court, my colleague Adam Liptak quoted an article by Steven Calabresi, a law professor at Northwestern: “Like it or not, Americans really are a special people with a special ideology that sets us apart from all other peoples.”

Palinism has its intellectual roots. But it’s dangerous for a country in need of realism not rage. I’m sure Henry Kissinger tried to instill Realpolitik in the governor of Alaska this week, but the angry exceptionalism that is Palinism is not in the reason game.

Sky Watch!

2008-09-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

Storm clouds over Dallas, Texas

The Bail Out

2008-09-25T11:51:00.000-07:00

I am joining Bobbi, Almost There in urging you to make your voice heard. It's not enough to just piss and moan, you have to make sure that people in Washington hear you!

You can join thousands of others protesting.

Click on this link:http://www.avaaz.org/en/wall_street_bailout Let your Congressman know how you feel.As of yesterday, over 100,000 letters of protest had been delivered...........................................................

Here's another choice, thanks to Dianne of Forks Off the Moment. She has suggested this means of communicating your feelings to Washington. It isa form you can use, from Barack Obama's site. You may prefer this one.Obama sponsored petition

Old Age Is a Gift

2008-09-25T10:03:00.000-07:00

I am now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be. Oh, not my body! I sometime despair over my body, the wrinkles, the baggy eyes, and the sagging rear. And often I am taken aback by that old person that lives in my mirror (who looks like my mother!), but I don't agonize over those things for long.

I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly.

As I've aged, I've become more kind to myself, and less critical of myself. I've become my own friend.

I don't chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn't need, but looks so avante garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant.

I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging.

Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon ?

I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 50's,60's & 70's. If I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love .... I will.

I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose, despite the pitying glances from the jet set. They, too, will get old.

I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I eventually remember the important things...

Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody's beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.

I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.

As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don't question myself anymore. I've even earned the right to be wrong.

So, to answer your question, I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be.

And I shall eat dessert every single day. (If I feel like it)

Now For A Couple of Laughs!

2008-09-25T00:00:00.001-07:00

For all of us who are---seniors---for all of you who know seniors---and for all of you who will be seniors. It pays to be able to laugh about it when you are!
Speaking of Senior Moments:

WHERE Is My SUNDAY Paper? The irate customer calling the newspaper office loudly demanded, wanting to know where her Sunday edition was. Ma'am, said the newspaper employee, today is Saturday .... The Sunday paper is not delivered until tomorrow, on Sunday. There was quite a long pause on the other end of the phone, followed by a ray of recognition.... As she was heard to mutter 'Well shit .. So that's why no one was at church today.'

A stunning senior moment
Apparently, a self-important college freshman attending a recent football
game took it upon himself to explain to a senior citizen sitting next to him
why it was impossible for the older generation to understand his generation.

'You grew up in a different world, actually an almost primitive one',
the student said, loud enough for man of those nearby to hear.
'The young people of today grew up with television, jet planes,
space travel, man walking on the moon. Our space probes have
visited Mars. We have nuclear energy, ships and electric and
hydrogen cars, cell phones , computerswith light-speed processing
...and more.'

After a brief silence, the senior citizen responded as follows:
'You're right, son. We didn't have those things when we were young......
so we invented them. Now, you arrogant little shit, what are you doing
for the next generation?'

The applause was amazing.......

Remember Sky Watch on Friday!

2008-09-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

America In Crisis - What Can We Do?

2008-09-24T09:15:00.000-07:00

Bobbi, of Almost There, posted a piece about how we all must continue to work together to push for the things this country needs – and right now there is a long list of those. But sinking into despair over the place our country finds itself today is not the answer. I’m guilty of that as I feel many of you are. We do need to, however, recognize the problems and do all we can to help solve them, in whatever way, large or small, with a big mouth like mine or in the gentle but persistent reminders of others. We have too much to lose by just sitting back and whining and to not stand up and fight back. We do have a voice, but we have to make certain that it is heard and for many of us, our blog is our voice. USE IT!

Here is an excerpt from today’s NYT Op-Ed piece by Thomas Friedman in the form of a letter from George Bush to the leaders of Iraq. Now wouldn’t it be great if Bush actually was this aware of all the aspects of our current situation? If he is I haven't seen much evidence so far.

“It’s hard for me to express to you how deep the economic crisis in America is today. We are discussing a $1 trillion bailout for our troubled banking system. This is a financial 9/11. As Americans lose their homes and sink into debt, they no longer understand why we are spending $1 billion a day to make Iraqis feel more secure in their homes.

For the past two years, there has been a debate in this country over whether to set a deadline for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. It seemed as if the resolution of that debate depended on who won the coming election. That is no longer the case. A deadline is coming. American taxpayers who would not let their money be used to subsidize their own companies — Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch — will not have their tax dollars used to subsidize your endless dithering over which Iraqi community dominates Kirkuk”.

Maureen Dowd also has a great satirical piece, Park Avenue Diplomacy, about Palin’s meeting with Henry Kissinger that is well worth the read.

So, again, let me encourage each of you -- urge each of you, to take a stand, use your resources, know all the facts, make your voice heard!

Want a Breather?

2008-09-23T17:00:00.000-07:00

This has been a really difficult day for me as it seems everywhere I look,
everything I read, everything I hear is angry and negative and hopeless, in some cases. It's hard to see that brighter day coming; the one all politicians are so fond of talking about.

When I stop for a moment and make a real effort to look beyond the gloom and doom, when I try to find something beautiful to read, to look at, to listen to, I can always find it. But sometimes it seems harder and harder to let go of the negative and I'm not sure why that is. So, it was time to open up my web albums where I keep all of my photographs.

Today I found these in another bunch from my friends Dale and Nancy who travel a great deal and are kind enough to share their adventures with me through photos. These were taken in Alberta, Canada. The first one is the Moraine Dock, the second is the log bench at Moraine and the view is so awesome, so inspiring, so magnificent that it suddenly became easier to see how small and unimportant so much of what we hear day in and day out really is in the wider and longer view.

We'll get through this. And if everyone could stop for just a bit and take a look around, take a deep breath, see the beauty in nature, in a loved one's face, in the faces of our children and grandchildren, I believe we can find the courage to do what has to be done to reclaim our country, our government, our personal lives.

So, I leave you with that thought and these photos!

Peace!

Think of It This Way

2008-09-23T14:51:00.000-07:00

This is from Chuck Todd of MSNBC and I've included the website.

Pretty scary, huh? Certainly hung a dark cloud over my afternoon.

With Paulson and Bernanke testifying before the Senate Banking Committee today on the proposed bailout, here's a bit of perspective on the size of the $700 billion proposal. If it were a country, it'd be the 21st largest in the world. It's more than the cost of the Iraq war. It's larger than the Pentagon budget and more than 11 times the U.S. education budget. It basically adds up to about three Ohios.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/09/23/1436850.aspx

What Does It All Mean -- Really?

2008-09-23T05:38:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure there's a way for me to fully comprehend the finanacial crisis this country faces today. I was born at the beginning of the Great Depression, have rallied through the smaller ones over the years. But today it seems we are being threatened with a situation, that if not handled well, could indeed doom us to another "great depression" that just may make the original look like a kiddie version.

Bob Herbert, Op-Ed writer for the New York Times, had an insightful article this morning, so instead of trying to explain what I feel I'm not really capable of explaining, or at least, anywhere close to the reality of the situation, I thought I would share his thoughts with you today.

September 23, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
A Second Opinion?
By BOB HERBERT

Does anyone think it’s just a little weird to be stampeded into a $700 billion solution to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression by the very people who brought us the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression?

How about a second opinion?

Everything needs much closer scrutiny in these troubled times because no one even knows who is in charge, much less what is going on. Have you ever seen a president who was more irrelevant than George W. Bush is right now?

The treasury secretary, Henry Paulson — heralded as King Henry on the cover of Newsweek — has been handed the reins of government, and he’s galloping through the taxpayers’ money like a hard-charging driver in a runaway chariot race.

“We need this legislation in a week,” he said on Sunday, referring to the authorization from Congress to implement his hastily assembled plan to bail out the wildly profligate U.S. financial industry. The plan stands at $700 billion as proposed, but could go to a trillion dollars or more.
Mr. Paulson spoke on the Sunday morning talk shows about “bad lending practices” and “irresponsible borrowing” and “irresponsible lending” and “illiquid assets.”

The sky was falling, he seemed to be saying, and if the taxpayers didn’t pony up $700 billion in the next few days, all would be lost. No time to look at the fine print. Hurry, hurry, said the treasury secretary.

His eyes, as he hopped from one network camera to another, said, as salesmen have been saying since the dawn of time: “Trust me.”

With all due respect to Mr. Paulson, who is widely regarded as a smart and fine man, we need to slow this process down. We got into this mess by handing out mortgages like lollipops to people who paid too little attention to the fine print, who in many cases didn’t understand it or didn’t care about it.

And the people who always pretended to know better, who should have known better, the mortgage hucksters and the gilt-edged, high-rolling, helicopter-flying Wall Street financiers, kept pushing this bad paper higher and higher up the pyramid without looking at the fine print themselves, not bothering to understand it, until all the crap came raining down on the rest of us.
Yes, the system came perilously close to collapse last week and needs to be stabilized as quickly as possible. But we don’t know yet that King Henry’s fiat, his $700 billion solution, is the best solution. Like the complex mortgage-based instruments at the heart of this debacle, nobody has a real grasp yet of the vast implications of Mr. Paulson’s remedy.

Experts need some reasonable amount of time — I’m talking about days, not weeks — to home in on the weak points, the loopholes, the potential unintended consequences of a bailout of this magnitude.

The patchwork modifications being offered by Democrats in Congress are insufficient. Reasonable estimates need to be made of the toll to be taken on taxpayers. Reasonable alternatives need to be heard.

I agree with the economist Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, that while the government needs to move with dispatch, there is also a need to make sure that taxpayers’ money is used only where “absolutely necessary.”
Lobbyists, bankers and Wall Street types are already hopping up and down like over-excited children, ready to burst into the government’s $700 billion piñata. This widespread eagerness is itself an indication that there is something too sweet about the Paulson plan.

This is not supposed to be a good deal for business. “The idea is that you’re coming here because you would be going bankrupt otherwise,” said Mr. Baker. “You’re coming here because you have no alternative. You’re getting a bad deal, but it’s better than going out of business. That’s how it should be structured.”

The markets tanked again on Monday as oil prices skyrocketed. Time is indeed short, but alternative voices desperately need to be heard because the people who have been running the economy for so long — who have ruined it — cannot be expected to make things right again in 48 or 96 hours.

Mr. Paulson himself was telling us during the summer that the economy was sound, that its long-term fundamentals were “strong,” that growth would rebound by the end of the year, when most of the slump in housing prices would be over.

He has been wrong every step of the way, right up until early last week, about the severity of the economic crisis. As for President Bush, the less said the better.

The free-market madmen who treated the American economy like a giant casino have had their day. It’s time to drag them away from the tables and into the sunlight of reality.

A Peaceful Place

2008-09-22T22:06:00.000-07:00

A quiet cove, calm water and blue sky and just what I'm
ready for this evening. It's been a busy day -- too much
politics, time to put it aside and look at what really matters.

But before I turn out the lights I want to thank Bobbi of Almost There

for giving me an award, and for the intent with which it is given: building solidarity among left-of-center bloggers. Thank you, Bobbi, let's all Blog On!

For Those of You Living in Washington State

2008-09-22T17:23:00.000-07:00

If any of you are interested in casting a "NO" vote on the "Bailout" here are a some local numbers to call.

Maria Cantwell 206-220-6400

Jim McDermott 206-553-7170

Patty Murray 206-553-5545

One of my neighbors figured out that with the cost of this it would cost every citizen in the U.S. $5,000.00. Just multiply that times every member of a household.

Did Someone Say “Clarity”?

2008-09-22T09:27:00.000-07:00

This "season" presents each political party with so many opportunities for providing "clarity". So here are some examples.

Now I have to admit that I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."

Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.

If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.

Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well-grounded.

If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you're very responsible.

If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.

If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

Oh yeah, much clearer now.

Don't forget to vote in the PBS poll -- see my earlier post. And you might want to check this one out, too. http://www.blogger.com/

This interview with Drew Westen on NOW, Obama's people should watch and learn.

This is a late addition! Take heed.
A new Lifetime TV poll -- conducted at the tail end of the Palin bubble and before last week's economic seachange -- indicates a major post-pick swing towards McCain-Palin from women who say that the GOP ticket offers a "better understanding of women and what is important to women." http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/09/22/1433515.aspx

PBS Poll - Is Palin Ready to be VP?

2008-09-22T08:22:00.000-07:00

All of you know what my vote was, but here is the website where you can vote. Please take a moment to make your voice heard. The results so far are scary! What on earth are people thinking? Or is that the problem? They're not --as usual!

http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html

Pink Flowers and Late Night Thoughts

2008-09-22T01:00:00.000-07:00

It's been a lovely weekend -- well, as long as I stayed away from the TV, which just got easier as we cancelled our service. I can keep abreast of all that I need to know on my computer without having to listen to the media talk and talk and say very little. My trip to the Black Diamond Coal Museum was really fascinating, great lunch at the local bakery.

Now that summer is definitely on it's way out, I've enjoyed again all the photos from the dahlia festival and thought that I'd share a couple more. There is such a variety of dahlias that I never knew about and that discovery has made the pictures all the more special. I guess during times like these it is so important to be able to focus on the small and beautiful and rewarding things in our lives rather than the nightmare of politics and finances. I don't mean we shouldn't face the problems and deal with them in the most effective way that we can, but it's important for our own sense of serenity and peace that we be able to find, to see, to touch the precious things in our lives and not just focus on bad things -- many of which are beyond our reach as far as being able to solve them -- at least for the whole country. But it is so important for our own peace of mind to be able to move our focus from those things, back to the beauty that is always there for us if we can take the time to look for it. And those are the things that can nourish us during the bad times. Hopefully, we will see a new day begin to dawn in our country and soon. And that new day is what I am focusing on tonight.

If You Ever Feel a Little Bit Stupid -- Take Heart!

2008-09-21T14:00:00.000-07:00

THESE PEOPLE SHOULD RUN FOR POLITICAL OFFICE....THEY CAN TALK AND SAY ABSOLUTLY NOTHING!

Question: If you could live forever, would you and why?
Answer: 'I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever,'
--Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest.

'Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.'
--Mariah Carey

'Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life,'
-- Brooke Shields, during an interview to become spokesperson for federal anti-smoking campaign

'I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body,'
--Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky basketball forward

'Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country,'
--Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, DC.

'That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I'm just the one to do it,'
--A congressional candidate in Texas

'Half this game is ninety percent mental.'
--Philadelphia Phillies manager, Danny Ozark

'It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.'
--Al Gore, Vice President

'I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix.'
-- Dan Quayle

'We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need ?'
--Lee Iacocca

'The word 'genius' isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.'
--Joe Theisman, NFL football quarterback & sports analyst.

'We don't necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people.'
-- Colonel Gerald Wellman, ROTC Instrutor. ,

'Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992 because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances.'
--Department of Social Services, Greenville, South Carolina

'Traditionally, most of Australia's imports come from overseas.'
--Keppel Enderbery

'If somebody has a bad heart, they can plug this jack in at night as they go to bed and it will monitor their heart throughout the night. And the next morning, when they wake up dead, there'll be a record.'
--Mark S. Fowler, FCC Chairman

Now, don't you feel brilliant?

Worth Checking Out

2008-09-21T10:00:00.001-07:00

These Op-Ed pieces are well worth reading. One is Frank Rich's column and the other is Nicholas Kristof's column. There is also his blog address and his Facebook address.

I've followed these writer's for years and appreciate their knowledge and their outlook. I don't always agree 100%, but then I probably don't agree with anyone 100% -- including myself.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/opinion/21rich.html?th&emc=th

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/opinion/21kristof.html?th&emc=th
I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground, and to join me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kristof.

Wake Up Call Maybe?

2008-09-20T18:00:00.000-07:00

You really think it could be that? Well, if not read it and weep -- if you aren’t already weeping as a result of the past few days. How about this headline for today?

“Bush seeks $700 billion for bailout

The Bush administration is asking Congress to let the government buy $700 billion in bad mortgages as part of the largest financial bailout since the Great Depression.”

What more does it take to get those “Hoosiers for a hot chick” Republicans, “skin color” skeptics and just plain “head in the sand” numb skulls to wake up? No, there are no roses or coffee to smell, just the sound of our country on the skids.

We so desperately need new leadership, not more of the same or maybe even worse. We need a new outlook, a new approach, new plans to get us out of the hole we’ve dug ourselves into – I say we because in spite of all the warnings over the past eight years, we have let this happen. We need to bring jobs back to our country, we need to rebuild our infrastructure, mend our roads and bridges, upgrade our schools and our hospitals and health care.

I’m certainly not smart enough to have any answers, but I do believe Obama has many of those answers and he’s also smart enough to find the right people who have the answers when he doesn’t and the courage to admit when he needs help.

No more of this delusional notion of McCain’s that the “fundamentals of the economy are strong”. Hello! does he even know what the fundametals are? If the economy isn’t his forte, do you really believe that it’s Palin’s forte? Wake up, people! Wake up before it’s too late!

An add on to "A Giggle"

2008-09-20T08:37:00.000-07:00

After my trip yesterday I had one question to add to my earlier post of Giggles.

Where but on a senior trip would they take you on a tour of the cemetery?

That's what they did yesterday on our return trip from the Black Diamond Coal Mine Museum and everyone of those old gals (47 - not counting me and my friend) were all but hanging out the window and even asked if we could stop and look around! But our guide told us we didn't have time, thank goodness! I figured most of them will be there soon enough anyway.

I like to browse them on my own looking for the really old gravestones and the stories they tell. I visited one in Savannah, GA that was fascinating.

As for me, I've told my kids to cremate me and scatter my ashes somewhere that I can grow something besides trouble.

Historic Black Diamond, Washington

2008-09-19T18:08:00.000-07:00

In the early 1880's, The Black Diamond Coal Company (BDCC) of Nortonville, CA was facing a monumental task.

As the coal supply they
were mining was beginning
to deplete, they faced moving
their entire operation -- miners,
their families, equipment and
all -- 1,000 miles north to a
remote area in Washington
Territory where a rich and
plentiful seam of high grade
coal promised to keep miners
busy for the next hundred years.
The area also provide all the timber
they needed to brace mine tunnels and build a town.

By 1885, the Company had completely
settled in the new town they named "Black Diamond."

The pictures here show the train station, which also housed a doctor's office, one of the old cars, the city jail and the what served as the fire department -- a great length of hose, wound on onto a wheeled cart that could be easily drug to the location of a fire.

The Black Diamond Bakery is not shown here, it was just down the street and has been operating since the late 1890s -- and food is delicious, great list of choices, each one more than you can eat in one meal.

It was a fun trip back in history in a hilly, heavily forested, beautiful area. I've been so fortunate to be able to take these free day trips sponsored by the Greenwood Senior Center. One member, when she died, left a substantial fund to provide free trips to members of the Center and they are great!

Next month I'll be going to Snoqualmie Falls and a Halloween train trip! I'm sure to get some good pictures there.

So, there are some advantages to growing old and these trips are certainly one of those.

A Happy Bee! And a Mystery Trip!

2008-09-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday!

I'm headed out early this morning on a trip to the Black Diamond Coal Mine Museum which is supposed to be
very interesting, but never having heard of it before, I can't guarantee it. But it's a free day-trip sponsored by the senior center where I take my Tai Chi classes. So I couldn't pass it up. The thing people talk about the most is the Black Diamond Bakery and Restaurant where we will be having lunch. It's supposed to be awesome and I'm hoping to bring home a
treat or two for my son -- and me.
So, I'm looking forward to the trip, I'm taking my camera -- excuse me, my son's camera, and I hope to bring back some interesting pictures and perhaps a story or two as well.

So, see if you can find my bee friend, chowing down on the daisies, have a great Friday and a great weekend! See! I managed to write the entire blog without once referring to politics! And this has to be one of the few times I've done that since I began writing this blog nearly three months ago. Don't count on the political break lasting much past today, however, I'm sure there will be plenty to get me riled up before Monday.

Clouds for Sky Watch

2008-09-18T17:09:00.000-07:00

Peyto Lake in Alberta, Canada

See Seattle Sunset below

Sunset for Sky Watch

2008-09-18T17:00:00.001-07:00

Sunset on Puget Sound

Time for a Giggle or Two

2008-09-18T17:00:00.000-07:00

Ramblings of a Retired Mind

I was thinking about how a status symbol of today is those cell phones that everyone has clipped onto their belt or purse. I can't afford one. So, I'm wearing my garage door opener.

You know, I spent a fortune on deodorant before I realized that people didn't like me anyway.

I was thinking that women should put pictures of missing husbands on beer cans!

I was thinking about old age and decided that old age is 'when you still have something on the ball, but you are just too tired to bounce it.'

I thought about making a fitness movie, for folks my age, and call it "Pumping Rust."

I have gotten that dreaded furniture disease. That's when your chest is falling into your drawers!

I know, when people see a cat's litter box, they always say, "Oh, have you got a cat?"
Just once I want to say, "No, it's for company!"

Employment application blanks always ask who is to be notified in case of an emergency.'
I think you should write, "A Good Doctor!"

Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What are we supposed to do... write to these men? Why don't they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so the mailmen could look for them while they deliver the mail? Or better yet, arrest them while they are taking their pictures!

I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older. Then, it dawned on me, they were cramming for their finals.

As for me, I'm just hoping God grades on the curve.

Check it Out!

2008-09-18T16:06:00.000-07:00

I just received this blog address in my email box with the note to pass it on. I read it and couldn't agree more. I have been to her site before, read her posts and she's worth reading, she has something to tell all of us. Somethings we should already know or be aware of, but it never hurts to be reminded again, particularly in the political climate of today.

I urge you to take a look and a read.

Time to stand up for intelligence

www.1womansvu.com

Never Too Late For a Great Opportunity

2008-09-18T04:00:00.000-07:00

In the early 90’s I was living in Dallas, Texas – where I was born and had spent a good part of my life. I had moved back there in 1983 when my husband and I separated, but even after nearly ten years in Dallas I still missed the northwest and wanted to go back before I got too old to move at all, let alone across the country. I loved Montana where we had lived, where our children had grown up, but I knew the chances of finding a job that would do more than keep me off food stamps was probably next to impossible. So, I moved to Oregon, to Portland and fell in love with the city and with the state, with its incredible coast line and magnificent mountains. Now, the only question was, would I be able to find a job? I was just about to turn sixty. It was the early 90s and the economy in Portland wasn’t the best.

I did find a job – finally, as office manager for a landscape architect’s two man business. Not the most promising employment for an old broad, but I had some money put back, I finally found an inexpensive little apartment belonging to one our contractors and I settled in to see where the fates would take me next.

After two years it became painfully obvious that I was not going to be able to prepare for my elder – more elderly years where I was, so I took another one of those deep breaths, handed in my resignation and I began searching for something with a little more future – even short termed future. I decided to work as a temp which would give me a better chance to check out the work environment before accepting a position. The economy was in much better shape by then with numerous high tech companies moving into the area.

Things just felt right the first day of my first temp assignment. It was with a Japanese silicon wafer manufacturing company – an old company in Japan, a new venture in the US. They had been selling silicon wafers to computer companies for years and had finally decided that the time had come to build a plant in the US, manufacture the wafers, as well as have a sales office, engineering department – the works.

I was hired to handle the phones and the front desk of the small, crowded office space they were using while the new $450 million dollar plant was being constructed. But my time on the front desk was short. My boss came to me one day and told me he wanted the company to take part in a job fair and he needed someone to take it on as a project and would I be willing to do that. I was thrilled at the opportunity, one to get out from behind the front desk and the phones, two, to be able make the most of my several years of experience in the Public Relations department of GTE to work for me at my new job with Komatsu. They had me hire a replacement for myself on the front desk and I went to work having a brochure designed, organizing space at the job fair and pulling it all together.

It was exciting and fulfilling because they left it totally in my hands, signed off on everything I requested and it was soon organized. The Fair was very successful and so were we and two months later the CEO called me in and offered me a permanent position as assistant to the new President.

Looking back I have to say that other than the job with the Independent Living Project, my job with Komatsu was the best, the most exciting, fun job I’ve ever had. I studied Japanese so I could at least be able to exchange greetings with the many executives and officers from the home office in Japan when they came for business trips and it was my job to help entertain them. We had many Japanese engineers that arrived to help get the plant up and operating and I arranged housing for them all. I helped get their families settled in, find doctors, schools for the children. I planned the parties, meetings, conferences and handled much of the publicity.

One of the lovely things about the company was the fact they hired young and old – I wasn’t the only sixties person, they hired people from many other countries – Russia, China, the US as well as Japan. And everyone seemed to feel the same excitement and enthusiasm at being involved with this new company. I was able to travel, to take classes in various aspects of the business that took me to San Francisco, Atlanta and always a chance to learn, to be involved.

We moved into the new building and it was magnificent! But isn’t it strange how things happen? Three years into this new project there was a big downturn in the Japanese economy and it soon became obvious that we would have to cut back and numerous jobs were eliminated. I managed to survive the first cut, but a little over three years after the exciting beginning, the plant was shut down. A $450 million dollar white elephant!

By that time I was sixty-seven and it was obvious even to me that my working days were about over. It was one of the most difficult times in my life. I wasn’t ready to stop or even slow down, but it was soon apparent that there was – is such a thing as age discrimination whether anyone wants to admit it or not.

But I took a deep breath, rented an apartment in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico and spent a fabulous year nursing my hurts and disappointments in the high desert county south of the border. Two of my kids came down for Christmas that year and we had a fabulous time. I slipped into the 21st century that December 31 and watched the world celebrate the beginning of the year 2000.

I returned to Oregon and settled down to try and make the most of retirement and I have to admit that life is still good – different, but good. It’s all in how you choose to see it.

Where Do We Go From Here and How Do We Get Started?

2008-09-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

I have heard from so many people who are upset, scared, uncertain as to where our country's financial mess is going to end up and where is it going to leave us? I'm certainly not wise enough to have any answers -- I'm looking for my own, but Thomas Friedmans Op-Ed column in the NYT yesterday did have, what seemed to me to be some very valid thoughts. I didn't want to pick and choose statements to post, so I'm posting the whole article and hope it will be of some benefit as we think through where we find ourselves these days.

September 17, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Keep It in Vegas
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Watching some financial stocks just get wiped out in recent months, I often hear a voice in the back of my head, and it is the same voice as one of those dealers in Las Vegas who coolly tells you as he sweeps up your chips after you’ve busted in blackjack: “Thank you for playing, ladies and gentlemen.”

That’s what happens when bubbles burst. You feel wiped out, and the coolness with which the dealers — in this case the markets — sweep away all your chips is unnerving. It’s easy to over-react, and it is important that we don’t. Now is the time for coolly sorting out what markets can do best and what governments need to do better.

Let’s understand what happened here. Wall Street — the financial industry — became a bubble in recent years thanks to an excess of liquidity and the oldest bubble maker in history: greed. Some of the smartest people forgot one of the oldest rules of investing: There is no such thing as a risk-free return. When you reach too far for yield, sooner or later you get burned.
In the ’90s, the no-lose, risk-free, high-yield return was supposed to be dot-com stocks. This decade’s version are subprime mortgages and financial stocks. Just like the dot-comers in the 1990s, the financial stocks got inflated to ridiculous levels and salaries for Wall Street executives reached ridiculous heights. You are now watching live and in color that bubble burst: “Thank you for playing, Lehman Brothers.” That’s really sad for a 158-year-old company.
The market is now consolidating this industry, with the strong eating the weak, which will impose its own fiscal discipline. Good. Maybe then more of our next generation of math geniuses will think about going into engineering the next great global industry — energy technology — rather engineering derivatives.

But we also need to understand the uniqueness of this bubble in order to identify where smart government needs to step in. One reason this financial bubble got so big is now well known: you and your neighbor went out and got subprime mortgages, which enabled many more people to become homeowners — a real blessing. Your local finance company or bank, which extended those mortgages, later resold them to an aggregator who put them into big packages with thousands of other subprime mortgages. Then those loan packages were chopped up and sold in small pieces as corporate bonds to all kinds of institutions, who were reaching for extra yield. Your subprime mortgage payments went to pay the interest on those bonds.
But as the housing market collapsed, and people couldn’t cover their mortgages or sell their houses, the bonds lost value and, therefore, the banks that held them lost capital, and the whole pyramid started to crumble. This infected the entire housing market, so banks no longer knew the value of their mortgage-backed assets. The result? They stopped lending. Hence, the current credit crunch. This credit crunch is what makes this crisis so lethal. We can’t tolerate a prolonged situation where banks won’t lend to good companies.

That’s why Congress needs to create another Resolution Trust Corporation like we used to get out of the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s. As then, so now, we need a government agency to buy the toxic mortgages off the banks’ balance sheets, hold them and sell them in an orderly way later. That would prevent a fire sale of homes and mortgages now and restore confidence to banks so they start lending again.

In the long run, though, regulators need to find ways to limit the amount of leverage investment banks or insurance companies can take on at any one time, because given how intertwined they all are in today’s global economy, one bank blowing up can now take down many.
“We are at the end of an era — the end of ‘leave it to the markets’ and of the great cop-out that less government is always better government,” argues David Rothkopf, a former Commerce Department official in the Clinton administration and author of a book about the world’s financial leaders who brought about this crisis: “Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making.” “I think, however, it is important to stress the difference between smart government and simply more government.

“We do not need a regulatory ‘surge’ on Wall Street,” he added. “We need a complete rethinking of how we make global financial markets more transparent and how we ensure that the risks within those markets — .many of which are new and many of which are not well understood even by the experts — are managed and monitored properly.”

In sum, government’s job is to police that fine line between the necessary risk-taking that drives an innovation economy and crazy gambling with other people’s savings in ways that threaten us all. We need to make sure that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas — and doesn’t come to Main Street. We need to get back to investing in our future and not just betting on it.

Happy Puppy!

2008-09-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

Sweet dreams!

Surf Gulls

2008-09-17T19:00:00.000-07:00

Surf gulls enjoying the beauty of a day off the Oregon coast
at Lincoln City. How grand to be so free! We should all be
so lucky! So I wind down the day with a beautiful image.

Books: Before, Now and Later

2008-09-17T12:46:00.000-07:00

I was browsing The Wanderer's blog and found this list of books. Even though I wasn't tagged either, I grabbed the list like she did. Here are the details:) Look at the list and bold those you have read. (I colored mine). I really loved all the ones I've read, can't say I really hated any of them, just liked some better than others -- I'll have to wait and see which ones I'm going to read, but these instructions were on the original site.
It's been a fun exercise in literature and brought back a lot of memories.

2) Italicize those you intend to read.

3) Underline the books you really love (and strikethrough the ones you hate!).

4) Reprint this list in your own blog.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling ( read just first one)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible -parts of it
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (read parts of it)
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (some of them)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen (read parts of it)
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (read half)
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker (saw the movie)
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Of course this is just one list and covers only some of what I have read, but it would be fun to see what others have read and what they recommend out of this list.

P.S. Forgot to mention earlier - just copy this on your blog and let me know so that I can find out what you have read :)

Address Update

2008-09-17T07:18:00.000-07:00

This is the updated blog address for the woman who had the horrible experience at a hospital.

http://www.but-first.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-i-spent-my-summer-vacation.html

Hopefully, changes will be made in the system as a result of all that's being done.

Don't I Wish I Could Have Said It This Good?

2008-09-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

GOP: it's just like high school
By Garrison Keillor In print: Wednesday, September 10, 2008

So the Republicans have decided to run against themselves. The bums have tiptoed out the back door and circled around to the front and started yelling, "Throw the bums out!" They've been running Washington like a well-oiled machine to the point of inviting lobbyists into the back rooms to write the legislation, and now they are anti-establishment reformers dedicated to delivering us from themselves.

They are coming out for Small Efficient Government the very week that the feds are taking over Fannie and Freddie, those old cash cows, and in the course of a weekend 20 or 50 or (pick a number) billion go floating out the Treasury door. Hello? We didn't just fall off the coal truck.
It is a bold move on the Republicans' part — forget about the past, it's only history, so write a new narrative and be who you want to be — and if they succeed, I think I might declare myself a 24-year-old virgin named Lance and see what that might lead to.

John McCain has decided to run as a former POW and a maverick, a maverick's maverick, rather than George W. Bush's best friend, and that's understandable, but how can he not address the $3-trillion that got burned up in Iraq so far? It's real money, it could've paid for a lot of windmills, a high-speed rail line in Ohio, some serious R&D. The Chinese, who have avoided foreign wars for 50 years, are taking enormous leaps forward, investing in their economy, and we are falling behind. We're wasting our chances. The Republican culture of corruption in Washington hasn't helped.

And a former mayor of a town of 7,000 who hired a lobbyist to get $26-million in federal earmarks is now running against the old-boy network in Washington who gave her that money to build the teen rec center and other good things so she could keep taxes low in Wasilla. Stunning. And if you question her qualifications to be the leader of the free world, you are an elitist. This is a beautiful maneuver. I wish I had thought of it back in school when I was forced to subject myself to a final exam in higher algebra. I could have told Miss Mortenson, "I am a Christian and when you gave me a D, you only showed your contempt for the Lord and for the godly hard-working people from whom I have sprung, you elitist battleaxe you."

In school, you couldn't get away with that garbage because the taxpayers know that if we don't uphold scholastic standards, we will wind up driving on badly designed bridges and go in for a tonsillectomy and come out missing our left lung, so we flunk the losers lest they gain power and hurt us, but in politics we bring forth phonies and love them to death.

I must say, it was fun having the Republicans in St. Paul and to see it all up close and firsthand. Security was, as one might expect, thin-lipped and gimlet-eyed, but once you got through it, you found the folks you went to high school with — farm kids, jocks, the townies who ran the student council, the cheerleaders, some of the bullies — and they are as cohesive now as they were back then, dedicated to school spirit, intolerant of outsiders, able to jump up and down and holler for something they don't actually believe. But oh, Lord, what they brought forth this year. When you check the actuarial tables on a 72-year-old guy who's had three bouts with cancer, you guess you may be looking at the first woman president, a hustling evangelical with ethics issues and a chip on her shoulder who, not counting Canada, has set foot outside the country once — a trip to Germany, Iraq and Kuwait in 2007 to visit Alaskans in the armed service. And who listed a refueling stop in Ireland as a fourth country visited. She's like the Current Occupant but with big hair. If you want inexperience, there were better choices.
© Garrison Keillor. All rights reserved.

Evening Thoughts

2008-09-16T22:00:00.000-07:00

And so another week is well underway and it's been so beautiful! with lots of sunshine and a cool breeze off the Sound. We may have to wait for summer, but it is well worth the wait!

Even though I don't get out and run around as much as I use to, I love sitting at my desk where the sunshine pours through the window and I can see the fruit trees, the bushes and shrubs -- everything has luxurious amounts of green and different shades of many colors.

And if I try, with just a little effort, I can, for a few hours put aside the darkness of our political landscape, the horrors the woman in New Mexico went through that I wrote about yesterday and updated today. Hopefully, calling attention to this criminal negligence will force some kind of change where others won't have to suffer the same cruel neglect and abuse.

So, this evening, as with many, I try to catalog the good things, the beautiful things, the laughter, the pleasure that are there for me to enjoy each day -- as there are for all of us, we just have to take the time to look. All it takes really for me is to focus on those things rather than the headlines of the day. Not that we ignore them, that will only mean they'll get worse, we have to speak out, we have to stand up, but in order to do that we have to take some time to feed the soul, nuture the spirit. I try to do that every day. I use to just run around like a mad woman, pulling my hair and screeching at -- for want of another audience -- my two faithful dogs, Mojo and Sam. They would just close their eyes and try to ignore me, it always surprised me that they didn't put their paws over their ears. But, hopefully, now I've found better ways to deal with the good and the bad and the ugly, and that's by writing about them -- all of them, because there is the good as well as the others and we need to give that equal time.

So, I turn on the music, pour my one glass of wine for the evening, enjoy the magnificent sunset and look forward to tomorrow.

Smile for the Day!

2008-09-16T16:13:00.000-07:00

Why can't we get along with those different from us?
Think maybe we could learn something from this
dog?

Follow-up to Medieval Medicine

2008-09-16T16:00:00.000-07:00

The lady who experienced the gross, outrageous treatment that I posted about yesterday, has started her own blog and you can read her account on the following blog:

Part 1 can be found at http://www.blogger.com/ and Part 2 at http://www.blogger.com/. She is home writing Part 3, etc. as we speak.

Things started at the Plains Regional Medical Center, and continued at the Curry County Adult Detention Center; then on to the Eastern New Mexico Medical Center in Roswell, NM.

Very interesting--she found out that there are 3 new protective custody rooms in the Emergency Room but the staff chooses not to use them and to send mentally ill patients to jail for reasons known only to them.

One of the Best Stories of My Life

2008-09-16T10:06:00.000-07:00

After reading Bobbie’s post today on Almost There, then reading the New York Times and Bob Herbert’s piece on McCain’s health care plan, I decided I didn’t want to look at today, write about today or even think about today. So, I chose to look back at a time in the early 80s and a job that I never expected to get.

We raised our kids in Montana, where my husband was stationed at Malmstrom AFB. When my kids first started to school I had taken a teaching position in the same Catholic school they attended. I didn’t teach any of their classes, of course, but it was fun because we could go to school together in the mornings, come home together in the afternoon and we had the same holidays and shared the same school activities.

Once they moved on to public middle schools, I worked at the library for a couple of years and enjoyed that simply because I got to be around books all the time and books have always been one of my favorite things.

But then one day I saw an ad in the newspaper that tweaked my curiosity. It was regarding a position with a new program in Montana. It was for a director of a local facility for a project called Independent Living, designed to help people with disabilities be able to become more integrated into the community. It was something I felt strongly about, something that I felt needed to happen for the disabled and so, although I knew very little about disabilities and knew no disabled people in the community, I knew I was more than willing and able to learn. So, I put in my application. Three days later I had my first interview.

The project was being directed by a nun, Sister Helen, out of the program's office in the state capital of Helena and she was looking for directors for Great Falls and for Billings. The interview went well and I met a disabled man, Jim Clark, who worked in the local office of the state employment department. He would be working with the new project as well.

I had to admit that I had no experience with the disabled, but that I was willing to learn and that I felt very strongly about the need for such a program. However, no one was more amazed than I was when three days later I was offered the job and I had to ask them why they had chosen me. Thinking about it later, their answer made perfect sense – I didn’t know what many involved with the disabled, considered impossible, I didn’t know what the usual excuses were for why the project’s goals were out of reach, I didn’t see why it couldn’t be done. They didn’t hire a disabled person at the time because there weren’t that many that would even be able to access and do much of what had to be done – that’s how bad conditions were at that time. The plan was to put the entire project in the hands of the disabled once the immediate goals were achieved. I knew the job probably wouldn’t last more than three to four years, and I was more than okay with that as I felt the disabled should, indeed run their own project, but I was excited about being able to help get it moving.

They also hired me an assistant, a Vietnam veteran who, due to wounds he received there had developed epilepsy and had been unable to find work in spite of having a degree in business. His name was David – one more David in my life in addition to my husband, David and my son, David. The next three years were three of some of the best and most exciting and rewarding years of my life.

Our first task was to find and furnish an office with separate space for both David and I. Once that was done, we set about locating as many of the disabled in the Great Falls area as possible. We got lists from hospitals, care givers and state offices. We visited one on one with as many as possible. We set up meetings where the disabled could come and voice their needs, their hopes and we began a list of things to accomplish. Things like providing parking spaces, with parking meters low enough for them to reach from a wheelchair, ramps to enable them to cross streets, attend church; go to movies, access the working environments so they might be able to get jobs, doors wide enough to allow wheelchair entrance into restaurants, stores, offices. It was a daunting task and we met a lot of resistance, excuses why it could never happen.

But over the next three years it did happen, as we set about to educate the public about the disabled. We met with business owners, city officials. We even took part in a school program in local high schools where we brought people with different disabilities to meet with students, to tell them their story about their disabilities, to answer questions. And gradually we began to see such incredible and wonderful changes not only in the disabled community, but in the entire community as they began to accept the disabled as needed and viable members.

Looking back and seeing how much has changed for the disabled over the past twenty-eight years gives me one of those warm, fuzzy feelings just knowing that I had a small part in making that happen for a lot of people in Great Falls, Montana.

Mother Nature at Her Finest!

2008-09-16T00:00:00.001-07:00

A beautiful way to remember the summer! These pictures were taken at the Dahlia Festival near Hillsboro, Oregon.
Thank you, James!

It's been a lovely spring and summer and while fall has it's own beauty, I'm a little wistful as always as the summer draws to a close.

Want a Little Satirical Entertainment?

2008-09-15T12:53:00.000-07:00

Check out this website.

http://www.peteyandpetunia.com/VoteHere/VoteHere.htm

A Matter of Urgency

2008-09-15T09:21:00.000-07:00

As hard as I try to find uplifting and beautiful things to post -- and I do post some of those, too -- I end up coming back to the nightmare of politics because I hate to see our country heading down the tube and if, "we the people" lose this election, that is exactly where we're headed.

The New York Times Op-Ed Section had an insightful and scary picture of the politics of today written by Frank Rich and I think his insights into this election are all too true – chillingly true. America had better wake up. NOW! Last week people were asking if Palin is qualified to be so very close to, not just the vice-presidency, the presidency itself. Now it seems a more likely question is, what kind of president would Palin be?

Rich says, and I couldn’t agree more, “It’s an urgent matter, because if we’ve learned anything from the G.O.P. convention and its aftermath, it’s that the 2008 edition of John McCain is too weak to serve as America’s chief executive. This unmentionable truth, more than race, is now the real elephant in the room of this election.

No longer able to remember his principles any better than he can distinguish between Sunnis and Shia, McCain stands revealed as a guy who can be easily rolled by anyone who sells him a plan for “victory”, whether in Iraq or in Michigan. A McCain victory on Election Day will usher in a Palin presidency, with McCain serving as a transitional front man, an even weaker Bush to her Cheney.

The ambitious Palin, who lies with ease about her own record, and the ruthless forces she represents know it, too. You can almost see them smacking their lips in anticipation, whether they’re wearing lipstick or not.”

Even though I was too young to be actively engaged in the politics of the late 1940s, I do remember the fear mongering of Joe McCarthy and how we were all told to see our enemies everywhere. Guess what? That’s the same pitch Republicans, McCain and Palin are using all over again. The same old game to pit the good, patriotic real Americans against those subversive, probably gay, urbanites, not to mention blacks, who threaten to take away everything small-town folks hold dear. Well, guess what “small-town folks”? They are using you and they do not share your values. They are after power and control and this country cannot afford another eight years with them in the White House and more of the same.

As Rich says, “This election is still about the fierce urgency of change before it’s too late. But in framing this debate, it isn’t enough for Obama to keep presenting McCain as simply a third Bush term. Any invocation of the despised president – like Iraq – invites voters to stop listening. Meanwhile, before our eyes, McCain is turning over the keys to his administration to ideologues and a running mate to Bush’s right.

As Republicans know best, fear does work. If Obama is to convey just what’s at stake, he must slice through the campaign’s lipstick jungle and show Americans the real perils that lie around the bend.”

In other words, people, wake up, pull you head out of the sand, pay attention to what is happening in this election! We only have 127 days to move our country towards real change – change that matters, desperately.

Dawn in Monument Valley Arizona

2008-09-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

The Monument valley trading post belonged to a man named "Goulding". He went to Hollywood in the early twenties and sold some movie makers on the idea of filming westerns on location in Monument Valley and when the production companies came out, they stayed at the tourist cabins that he had by his Indian trading post (this was in pre-motel days). In some of the John Wayne movies buildings from Goulding's lodge and dining hall complex were used as props. The building that you see in the photo was the trading post (on the first floor). The Gouldings lived on the second floor. This building served as post headquarters at the fort in "Fort Apache".

Here's a site that tells you more about Harry Goulding and his wife "Mike". http://www.silverstage.net/gouldings.htm

She was helping to restore the trading post to what it had once been years ago. Peace, tranquility and vastness best describes Monument Valley. I think we could all use a little peace these days.
Thanks to Dale for sharing all his good stuff so that I can share it with you.

Are We Sure What Century We Live In?

2008-09-14T16:00:00.000-07:00

I asked a friend’s permission to post this because it is hard to believe this could be happening in our country today – or maybe it isn’t and I’m just still wearing rose-colored glasses. Maybe a lot of us are still wearing those tinted shades these days and that’s just as frightening as what happened to this woman. It means it could happen to any of us.

Medieval Treatment of Mentally Ill in NM?

I have a friend who is bright, witty, and intelligent; she is also diagnosed with clinical depression. On Saturday she started having a reaction because she ran out of some of her prescription pills--poor planning being one of the manifestations of her illness. She had a kind of breakdown, felt suicidal, and quite sensibly took herself to the emergency room of the local hospital for help and so that she would be safe. I visited her there. She was no danger to anyone else, just curled up and sobbing. If I had known what was coming, I would never have left her side, but after a couple of hours I went home to my family when she assured me she would be okay and just wanted to sleep.They kept her under observation in the ER for a few hours, then told her she would be transferred to Roswell to the hospital there for further testing. The next thing she knew, the local police showed up, handcuffed and shackled her, and took her to the jail. Her clothes were taken away from her and she was given a kind of vest with velcro closings to cover her nakedness. They wouldn't let her make a telephone call. She was put into a cement holding cell that contained no toilet, no sink, no place to sit, no bed, no blankets. She was left there all night. This is a 59-year old woman who has chronic back problems. They wouldn't allow her to have her pain pills and she ended up lying on the cement floor trying to sleep--cold, frightened, suicidal, and in a great deal of pain. The only way she could access bathroom facilities was to pound on the door and yell for someone to take her. She said the staff would look right at her through the plexiglass window and walk away.In the morning she was given her clothing, some hot cereal, and was made to sign involuntary commitment papers, although she told them it wasn't necessary because she only wanted to be in a safe place and was seeking help quite voluntarily. She was shackled with chains and handcuffed again and taken by a sheriff to Roswell. When she arrived at the hospital they weren't sure what to do with her, as the sending hospital had sent no information about her to them. She was eventually admitted and has seen a psychiatrist who provided the missing pills and feels that she is no longer a danger to herself. She'll be released in the next couple of days. She asked the sheriff on the way down to Roswell why this was happening. He said that it was the hospital's policy, that this is the way they always handle cases like hers, and that neither the sheriff nor the police liked having anything to do with "this stuff." He advised that she get a good lawyer and "sue the hell out of them."

What Are We Thinking? Or is That the Problem?

2008-09-14T07:30:00.000-07:00

As you can no doubt tell from the titles of my last couple of posts, I have lots of questions these days and I’ve not really heard anything that even resembles a valid answer. Did you watch Palin’s interview with Charlie Gibson? Did you ask yourself why on earth is this woman being considered as vice-president of the most powerful country in the world? Well, it was once; we’ve slid down the pipe a long way in the past eight years. But if we elect McCain/Palin we can pretty much finish kissing our reputation in the world good-bye. This isn’t American Idol you know, we’re about to elect a president and vice-president of the United States of America and we can’t afford the dimwitted choice we actually seem about to make.

Palin doesn’t even seem to have the foggiest idea what the Bush Doctrine is all about when asked if she believed in it. To quote Bob Herbert, NYT Op-ED, “The Bush doctrine, which flung open the doors to the catastrophe in Iraq, was such a fundamental aspect of the administration’s foreign policy that it staggers the imagination that we could have someone no further than a whisper away from the White House who doesn’t even know what it is.”

He goes on to say, “The economy is in a tailspin. The financial sector is lurching about on rubbery legs. We’re mired in self-defeating energy policies. We’re at war. And we are still vulnerable to the very real threat of international terrorism.”

I’m horrified by the fact that she knows less about history than I do and she still doesn’t seem to know that Hussein and Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. And at this moment she seems to have a very good chance of becoming vice-president of this country.

What, please tell me, does it take for this country to wake up, stop following the stories of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and all the other movie celebrities and try focusing on the desperate need this country has for stable, intelligent, open-minded, and wise leadership? Or do we just plan to continue on living in la-la land while our country goes down the tubes?

You think things are bad now? Believe me, you have no idea just how much worse they can get with hot-headed, irresponsible, uninformed leadership. I just hope we sit up and get our heads on straight before it’s too late.